However you landed here, welcome. You do not need to read this top to bottom.

If you are writing your vows, jump to the vows bit. If someone has talked you into giving a speech and you are quietly regretting saying yes, go straight to the speech section. If you just want lovely words to borrow, there is a long list at the very end you can copy from. Take what helps and leave the rest.

This is for the two of you, and for anyone standing up to speak on your day. The aim is simple. Help you find the right words, and help you say them in a way that lands in the room and, just as nicely, in your film.

The part most people miss

Here is the thing nobody mentions. The words said on your day do not just live in the room and then vanish. We build your film around them.

When we edit, your vows, your readings, and the best lines from the speeches become the voice of the film. We lay them over the quiet shots, the slow ones, the moments you were too busy living to notice. The picture shows what the day looked like. Your voices tell us how it felt.

So the words you choose, and the way you say them, do more than you would think. No pressure though. Mostly it just means this: say the true thing, and say it like you mean it.

Where your words show up

There are three main places words turn up, and each does a slightly different job.

• Your vows. The promises you make to each other, and usually the most honest words of the day.
• Your readings. Often read by a friend or a family member. A lovely way to hand someone you love a part to play.
• Your speeches and toasts. Father of the bride, best man, maid of honour, and sometimes the two of you. Where the stories live, and where the laughs are.

If you are writing your own vows

The best vows are not the most poetic. They are the most specific.

• Say the small true thing. Not "you complete me", but the actual habit, the actual moment, the thing only you would think to say. Specific is what makes people cry.
• Make real promises. Mix the meaningful ones with one or two that are smaller and a bit funny. That balance feels human.
• Keep it short. A page is plenty. Read aloud, a page is longer than you think.
• Write it for the ear. Read it out loud as you go. If you trip over a line, cut it.
• Agree the shape together. Same rough length, same rough tone. It is jarring when one of you does three lines and the other does a TED talk.

Not sure where to begin? Have a browse of the list at the bottom of this page, or one of the wedding sites listed there. Borrow a line, then make it yours.

If you are giving a speech

First, breathe. Nobody is expecting Churchill. The room is on your side before you open your mouth, and most of them are quietly relieved it is you up there and not them.

Now the single most useful trick: get a laugh early then move towards what the heart is saying.

One light line in the first thirty seconds does two things at once. It settles the room, and it settles you. The moment people laugh, your shoulders drop and the rest comes easier. It does not need to be a great gag. A small, warm, true joke about the couple, or about how terrified you are to be holding this microphone, is plenty. The dad jokes are practically the law, so lean in.

Once everyone is breathing with you, get to the heart of it.

• One story, told well, beats ten in-jokes. Pick the one story that says who they really are, and tell it properly.
• Speak to them, not just about them. Turn and talk to the person. Those are the lines that land hardest, in the room and on the screen.
• Keep it to a few minutes. Three to five is plenty. Nobody has ever wished a wedding speech was longer.
• Land one real sentence near the end. After the laughs, drop the jokes for a moment and say the thing you actually mean. That is the line that gets the tears.
• Read it aloud beforehand, twice, to one honest friend. It calms the nerves and shows you what to cut.

That last sentence, the real one, is usually the moment a speech turns. The laughs warm everyone up. The true line is what they remember.

Saying it well, because it ends up in your film

However good the words, the delivery is what carries them.

• Slow down. Go slower than feels natural. Nerves speed everyone up, and slower always sounds more certain.
• Look up. Look at your partner, or the room, not just the page. The moments your eyes leave the paper are the ones we live for.
• Let the pause sit. Silence is not a mistake. A held pause gives a big line room to land.
• You do not need to shout. The microphone hears everything, even a wobble. Speak as if to one person.
• One idea per sentence. Easier to say, easier to hear.‍

That is the lot

Whether you are writing your own vows or giving a speech across the room, the heart of it is the same. Connection.

So give everyone something to laugh about. A funny story goes a long way, and a room that is laughing is a room that is with you. But look at why those stories land. They are funny because of what sits underneath them. The history, the closeness, the love that turned all those daft little moments into something worth telling. The laughs are the way in. The thing underneath is what people actually feel, and it is what the two of you will carry for a lifetime.

Choose words that sound like you, say them like you mean them, and the rest takes care of itself.

The word list

Everything below is here for you to copy, borrow, and make your own. The older pieces are written out in full so you can lift them straight off the page. For the newer films, songs, and poets, you will find where to read them in full, plus a few good places to go hunting.

Scan the headings, find a mood that fits, then dive in.

Ready to read, written out in full

Scripture and blessings

1 Corinthians 13 (King James wording, free to use). For the gentler modern phrasing most people know, "love is patient, love is kind", look up the NIV translation.

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up... And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

Song of Solomon 6:3 (King James).

"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."

Classic poems

Shakespeare, Sonnet 116. Love that holds through whatever comes.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."

Shakespeare, Sonnet 18.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43. The one that builds. Read it slowly.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach..."

Robert Burns, "A Red, Red Rose". Warm, plain, Scottish, lovely.

"O my Luve is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody that's sweetly played in tune."

Lord Byron, "She Walks in Beauty". For saying someone is lovely without sounding like a card.

"She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes."

Christina Rossetti, "A Birthday". Pure joy, for a couple who cannot believe their luck.

"My heart is like a singing bird... because my love is come to me."

Anne Bradstreet, "To My Dear and Loving Husband". Written in the 1600s, still lands.

"If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee."

Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road". Marriage as a road you choose. Reads beautifully as a question between you.

"Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

Kahlil Gibran, "On Marriage" from The Prophet. For honouring both togetherness and being your own person.

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness... Love one another, but make not a bond of love... And stand together yet not too near together: for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

Lines from classic novels and plays

Jane Austen, Persuasion. Captain Wentworth's letter. Quiet, and all the better for it.

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope... I have loved none but you."

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Mr Darcy, finally getting to the point.

"You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights. Short, and it lands like a punch.

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. For the couple who bickered their way into love.

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?"

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables.

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."

Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance. Four words.

"Who, being loved, is poor?"

John Keats, in a letter to Fanny Brawne.

"Love is my religion and I could die for that."

Modern favourites, and where to find them

These are under copyright, so they are not printed here, but they are wonderful to read aloud. Look them up in full and choose the lines that sound like you, not just the famous ones.

From films and television

The Notebook, Noah's speech about love being hard and worth it anyway. When Harry Met Sally, Harry's New Year's Eve declaration. Monica and Chandler's vows in Friends, for couples who were friends first. Search the film or episode name plus "quote", or look on the IMDb quotes page.

From songs

Ed Sheeran, "Thinking Out Loud". Elvis Presley, "Can't Help Falling in Love". Taylor Swift, "Lover". Etta James, "At Last". Christina Perri, "A Thousand Years". Pull up the full lyrics on a streaming app or the artist's official page, and listen out for the quieter lines, not just the chorus.

From modern poets

Pablo Neruda, "Sonnet XVII", the "I love you without knowing how" one. Maya Angelou on love that liberates. E. E. Cummings, "i carry your heart with me". Nikita Gill and Nayyirah Waheed for something more contemporary. R. H. Sin, Nicholas Sparks, and John Green if their voice fits yours. Most are on Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org) or Poets.org, or in the original collection.

Spiritual and lyrical

Rumi and Hafiz. The translations vary a lot, so read two or three versions and pick the one that moves you rather than the first one you find.

Good places to go hunting

• UK wedding sites: Hitched, Bridebook, Rock My Wedding
• Bigger collections: The Knot, WeddingWire, Brides
• Poetry: Poetry Foundation, Poets.org
• Google searches that actually work: "non religious wedding readings", "funny wedding readings", "father of the bride speech examples", "best man speech opening lines", "short wedding readings for a friend"

One for the pub quiz

The "Apache Wedding Blessing" that turns up at half the weddings in the country, the one that starts "Now you will feel no rain", is not an ancient Native American blessing at all. It was written for a 1947 novel called Blood Brother, and reached everyone through a 1950 film. Lovely words. Just not quite what people think they are. Worth knowing before you introduce it to a room.

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