10 non-religious wedding readings UK celebrants actually use

There are roughly forty wedding readings on every "top wedding readings" list on the internet. Most of those lists are wrong, or at least useless. They're ranked by search traffic, not by what actually lands in front of two people, their families, and a celebrant trying to hold the room.

Here are ten readings that consistently work for non-religious UK ceremonies. Not the longest list. Not the most poetic. Just the ones that earn their three minutes.

One reason the question comes up so often: a register-office ceremony can't include religious content at all, and couples who want real control over the words tend to go the celebrant route instead. If a couple you're talking to is still weighing that up, wedding celebrant vs registrar sets out the difference plainly.

1. "i carry your heart with me" — E.E. Cummings

Short. Intimate. The line that opens it is the line everyone remembers. It works because it sounds like a real person speaking to the person they love, rather than a poet performing.

Good for: couples who've been together a long time; a reader with steady delivery. Be careful when: the reader is nervous. The unconventional punctuation throws people. Strip it out of the reading copy and print it as plain sentences.

2. Sonnet 116 — William Shakespeare

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds." Fourteen lines, formal, but the argument inside it — that love doesn't change just because the situation changes — is one of the most useful things you can put into a wedding ceremony.

Good for: second marriages, blended families, couples who have already weathered something together. Be careful when: the reader can't handle iambic pentameter. Modern phrasing wins over scared Shakespeare any day.

3. Extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin — Louis de Bernières

The passage where the older man tells the younger one that being in love is the easy part, and that the love which lasts is what's left over once the passion has worn down into companionship.

Good for: couples who've lived together for years; older couples; couples with a wry sense of themselves. Be careful when: it's read in full. It's long and it gets repetitive. Cut it to the central passage and the ending.

4. "Union" — Robert Fulghum

Short, secular, and one of the very few readings written specifically for weddings rather than borrowed from somewhere else. It opens by tracing the couple's arc from first acquaintance through to this point of commitment, which is exactly why it lands: it tracks how people actually get to the day.

Good for: any ceremony, but particularly humanist services where you want a reading that knows it's a wedding. Be careful when: nothing comes to mind. This is one of the safest picks on the list.

5. "On Marriage" — Kahlil Gibran

From The Prophet. The famous lines about the spaces in your togetherness, and the cypress and the oak not growing in each other's shadow. A reading about not losing yourself.

Good for: two strong personalities; two people with separate careers, hobbies and friendships who want the ceremony to acknowledge that. Be careful when: the family is religious in a traditional way. Gibran's spirituality is its own flavour and can land wrong.

6. "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" — W.B. Yeats

Eight lines, and arguably the most romantic eight lines in English. It ends with "tread softly because you tread on my dreams", a line quoted everywhere precisely because it nails something real.

Good for: a quieter ceremony; a reader with a soft voice; an Irish family. Be careful when: there are bigger personalities in the room and the reading gets read too small to register.

7. The Apache Wedding Blessing

The one about never feeling the rain again, because each of you will be shelter for the other. It's probably not actually Apache — most sources trace it to a 1947 novel — but the modern ceremony tradition around it is real. Couples request it constantly because the imagery is plain, clear, and works at any volume.

Good for: outdoor ceremonies, second marriages, ceremonies that want a blessing without a religion attached. Be careful when: a Native American guest is present. Many find the attribution disrespectful. If in doubt, leave it out.

8. "The Owl and the Pussycat" — Edward Lear

Yes, really. A growing number of UK celebrants drop this in as the second reading, and it works. Particularly with a slightly nervous family, where lowering the temperature with something familiar and a bit silly is exactly what the room needs.

Good for: couples with a playful sense of humour; readings done by a child or a grandparent. Be careful when: the rest of the ceremony is very formal. It'll feel like it wandered in from a different wedding.

9. "Yes, I'll Marry You My Dear" — Pam Ayres

Comic, and quintessentially British. The bride accepts the proposal on condition the groom takes the bins out and stops leaving socks on the floor. The room laughs, hard.

Good for: a long-engaged couple; a couple already living together; a family that wants the tension broken early. Be careful when: someone in the family doesn't do irony. It happens. Read the room.

10. "Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog" — Taylor Mali

A spoken-word piece that arrived on the wedding circuit about ten years ago and has stayed. It builds slowly and lands on the idea that love asks the same thing of you that a dog does: be there, every day, paying attention.

Good for: couples who own a dog, obviously, but also any reader with the rhythm to deliver it. Be careful when: the reader treats it as a page of prose. It's spoken word. It needs the pauses.

How many readings, and where to put them

Two readings in a 25 to 30 minute ceremony is the sweet spot. One feels thin; three pushes out the vows and the personal tribute.

Place them either side of the vows. First reading after the welcome and the "how they met" section, before the vows. Second reading after the ring exchange, before the declaration. That rhythm — story, reading, promise, reading, declaration — gives the ceremony lift in both halves. If you want the full running order that sits around them, how to write a wedding ceremony script walks through the whole shape.

Who should read

Anyone, with two exceptions. Don't ask the mother of the bride or groom to do a serious reading on the day. Emotion tends to overtake training, and you don't want her crying at the lectern with the camera on her. Save her for something at the reception.

And give a child a reading only if you've heard them read it at the rehearsal. Some children love being on stage; some freeze. There's no telling which until they're in the room with people looking at them.

One steady reader and one slightly nervous reader is fine. Good, even. Put the steady one second so the room ends on confidence.

What about song lyrics

People ask. Lyrics read aloud, without the song, rarely land. The phrasing was written for a melody, and without the melody it's often just words. Better to play the song properly at a different point in the day: the entrance, the signing, the recessional.

One exception. A short verse, read by a sibling who has been told to keep it under thirty seconds, can work as a bridge between two bigger moments. Anything longer turns into karaoke.

Keep a shortlist you actually trust

The celebrants who handle readings well aren't the ones with the biggest anthology. They're the ones with a dozen pieces they know inside out: how long each runs, which reader each suits, where it sits in the ceremony. Build that list once and you stop starting from nothing every time a couple asks "what would you suggest?"

If you'd rather measure that than estimate it, our Slot Checker will read a reading back as a spoken running time at your own pace, and show you what it does to the ceremony around it. Free, no signup, and nothing you paste leaves your browser.

Common questions

What are good non-religious wedding readings?

Widely used non-religious wedding readings in the UK include "i carry your heart with me" by E.E. Cummings, "Scaffolding" by Seamus Heaney, the passage from Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, and "Union" by Robert Fulghum. The best reading is the one that feels true to this specific couple.

How long should a wedding reading be?

Wedding readings work best at one to two minutes read aloud, roughly 150 to 250 words. That's long enough to be meaningful without losing the room's attention. A single stanza of poetry can also work well at an emotional peak.

Who should read at a wedding?

A friend or family member who is confident speaking aloud, cares about the couple, and has time to rehearse. Avoid choosing someone because they "should" be involved. An unprepared, nervous reader is harder on the room than leaving the slot empty.

When in a wedding ceremony should readings happen?

Readings typically follow the couple's story section and come before the vow exchange, so they build momentum towards the ceremony's climax. Avoid placing a reading right at the start, before the room has settled.

Keeping track of who's reading what

Every wedding ends up with a small pile of decisions attached to it: which readings, who's reading them, which version of the text, and whether the reader has actually seen it yet. Keep those against the booking they belong to rather than scattered through your inbox. Future-you, on the Friday before, will be grateful. That's what Ceranova's ceremony editor is for, alongside a diary that holds wedding and funeral work in one place.

If you'd like a calmer home for your scripts and running orders, you can start a 14-day free trial — no card required.