Off the back of a wonderful 2025 filled with so many gorgeous weddings – I am putting together some of the standout ones from the year for you to consider for your 2026 ceremony.
I think these readings are about to become very popular indeed.
The last one on the list is my forever favourite – so much so I weaved a line into my own vows and my sister quoted it during her MOH speech – it is so beautiful and you need to listen to him perform it to experience its magic.
I hope these inspire you to look around and find more gems everywhere you look.
MARRY YOUR BEST FRIEND – N’TIMA
Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly.
Really, truly find the strongest, happiest friendship in the person you fall in love with.
Someone who speaks highly of you.
Someone you can laugh with.
The kind of laughs that make your belly ache, and your nose snort.
The embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laughs.
Wit is important. Life is too short not to love someone who lets you be a fool with them.
Make sure they are somebody who lets you cry, too. Despair will come.
Find someone that you want to be there with you through those times.
Most importantly, marry the one that makes passion, love, and madness combine and
course through you.
A love that will never dilute – even when the waters get deep, and dark.
THE WEDDING POEM – WHITNEY HANSON
They say that sometimes
love starts with a spark.
And that might be true,
but if I were to wish you a love,
I wouldn’t wish fire for you.
You see, fire is powerful.
It burns bright and then it’s gone.
It’s beautiful and warm,
but it doesn’t last long.
So instead of wishing you a love that burns,
I wish you a love like a river twists and turns.
It changes and it flows,
It is powerful and free.
But it consistently finds its way back to the sea.
And so like the water,
I hope your love is ever growing, ever changing.
I hope your love is powerful and free,
And may you always find each other,
Like a river finds the sea.
TO BE WITH YOU – JOSIE BALKA
To be with you is to be entirely me,
The exact way I’d be as if no one were watching except you’re there too.
I am me and I am loved because of it.
To be with you is to be me but with less pressure,
Because you are there to bear the other side of the weight that life has to offer
It romanticises the simple things I love to live for,
Like changing leaves and summer days and reading on the couch at night.
It makes me somehow love them more because I exist with you while it happens
all around us.
To be with you is exactly where I want to be,
Exactly as I am,
Exactly as you are.
DUST – HARRY BAKER – (Condensed version for a wedding)
It’s not the flowers,
It’s the weeding in the mud with you.
It’s not the champagne,
It’s the cuppa in that favourite mug you use.
It’s not the chocolate –
Okay yes it is, but not just one or two,
it is becoming Bruce Bogtrotter
and Augustus Gloop.
It’s voting frozen pizza
over fancy grub with you.
Because some nights,
nothing can beat
a slice of comfort food.
It’s knowing anything I eat
will include some for you.
Because you’re not hungry
But you might just have a couple spoons.
It’s not the dreaming,
it’s the waking up with you.
I want to be here long enough
to gather dust with you.
For us love isn’t in the air,
that is just where we found it.
All this is built upon
what we have done
to ground it.
It’s not the spark when we first met,
it is the lifetime built around it.
It’s by small amounts
that mounds
amount to mountains
I need not justify, adjust,
or fear I’m judged by you.
Such is the glorious consistency
of loving you.
My heart’s not skipped a beat
it just constantly thuds for you.
Such is the everyday magnificence
of loving you
It’s not something we fell into
so much as stumbled through.
It’s the spectacular normality
