There is a long and rich tradition linking poetry to the marriage ceremony, beginning with the Greeks, who invented a form known as the epithalamium. Whether you’re looking for a poem to read for your significant other or to toast the newly married couple, browse this selection of popular wedding poems to share for any type of couple or ceremony.
 

Popular Classic Poems to Read at Weddings

1 Corinthians 13:4–7, from World English Bible
Love is patient and is kind

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Now” by Robert Browning
Out of your whole life give but one moment!…

This Union” by Hafez
This / Union you want...

[Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape]” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape...

Epithalamion, [Happy Bridegroom]” by Sappho
Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings…

Sonnet 18 [Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?]” by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…

Sonnet 116 [Let me not to the marriage of true minds]” by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Marriage Morning” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Light, so low upon earth…

Song of the Open Road, I” by Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road…

Popular Contemporary Poems

Habitation” by Margaret Atwood
Marriage is not / a house or even a tent...

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” by E. E. Cummings
somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond…

On Marriage” by Kahlil Gibran
Love one another, but make not a bond of love...

Scaffolding” by Seamus Heaney
Masons, when they start upon a building...

A Blessing for Wedding” by Jane Hirshfield
Today when persimmons ripen…

Epithalamion” by Rickey Laurentiis
She drew a name full of winning flesh…

From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee
From blossoms comes…

So Much Happiness” Naomi Shihab Nye
It is difficult to know what to do…

Stories About Love / Wedding Poem for Ada & Lucas” by Jason Schneiderman
In one story, the lovers are two halves...

Re-Statement of Romance” by Wallace Stevens
The night knows nothing of the chants of night…