What About The Speech?
How to get laughs, tears, and thunderous applause
9 moving poems for your wedding vows
Reading Time: 5 Minutes
Writing your own wedding vows can be a big job. You have to express your feelings, make your promise, and (hopefully) not tear up!
One great way to add a bit of pizzazz to your wedding vows is by quoting some or all of a poem. Here are 9 of the most moving poems to help you write wedding vows that bring a tear to every eye.
1. I Carry Your Heart – E. E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
2. Sonnet 116 – William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
3. O My Love’s Like a Red, Red Rose – Robert Burns
O my Love’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Love’s like the melody,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare-thee-well, my only Love!
And fare-thee-well, a while!
And I will come again, my Love,
Though ‘twere ten thousand mile!
4. Music, When Soft Voices Die – Percy Shelley
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory --
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
5. Marriage Morning – Alfred Lord Tennyson
Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.
O all the woods and the meadows,
Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!
Light, so low in the vale
You flash and lighten afar:
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning star.
Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood:
Oh, lighten into my eyes and my heart,
Into my heart and my blood!
Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers.
Over the thorns and briers,
Over the meadows and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash of a million miles.
6. She walks in beauty – Lord Byron
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:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade more, one ray less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
7. Who Ever Loved That Loved Not At First Sight? – Christopher Marlowe
It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
8. Sonnet 14 – Elizabeth Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile .. her look .. her way
of speaking gently ... for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day –
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee – and love, so wrought
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry –
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and loose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.
9. How Great Delight - Wordsworth
How great delight from those sweet lips I taste
Whether I hear them speak, or feel them kiss!
Only this want I have, that being graced
With one of them, the other straight I miss.
Love, since thou canst do wonders, heap my blisses
And grant her kissing words, or speaking kisses.
How great delight from those sweet lips I taste
Whether I hear them speak, or feel them kiss!
Only this want I have, that being graced
With one of them, the other straight I miss.
Love, since thou canst do wonders, heap my blisses
And grant her kissing words, or speaking kisses.
There you have it – 9 great poems to add depth and power to your wedding vows.
Pro tip: if you’re having a religious ceremony that doesn’t let you write your own vows, why not read one of these poems before or after the ceremony? Another alternative is to incorporate them into the reception – or your wedding speech!
Of course, there are plenty more poems out there, but I hope these have been a great inspiration!
About the author: Alexander Westenberg, Milestone Speechwriter, is a teacher, a musician, and long-time speechwriter. Read more…
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