Ceremony Readings · 72 readings
Short Wedding Readings
Short wedding readings that take under a minute to read aloud — poems, scripture and blessings for nervous readers, children and ceremonies that run long.
A reading does not need to be long to be memorable. Some of the best-loved words in any ceremony — “Stone walls do not a prison make,” “Whither thou goest, I will go,” “My true love hath my heart and I have his” — take less than a minute to say. A short reading is kinder to a nervous reader and to a child, easier to hear in a garden or on a beach, and it leaves room in the ceremony for the vows, which are what everyone came for.
Every reading below takes a minute or less at a steady speaking pace of about 130 words a minute. They are listed from shortest to longest, so you can see at a glance what will fit. If you want two readers, pair a short piece with a longer one from the full library.