Not everyone has poetry or compelling passages of prose floating around in their heads. Not everyone can spout lines by rote. But this should not stop you from having moving and appropriate readings included as part of your ceremony. We have gathered some of our favorites here for you.

If you're having a religious ceremony, before you make your final selections from these or other non-religious passages, be sure to confirm with your celebrant that the readings will be permitted. Some religions have rather firm rules about acceptable readings.

Getting Started
In your search for non-religious wedding readings you have almost unlimited options. Love has been a universal theme in poetry since human beings began putting ink to paper (even chisel to stone). If you have a favorite poet, read his or her works to find love-themed poetry. The poetry you choose need not mention weddings.

Think of the great love stories you've read and find passages from the books to quote. Few people have written more passionately about love in their fiction than D.H. Lawrence for example. And Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" is filled with wonderful prose that can be excerpted.

Shakespeare is always a good source. Great love stories in his plays between Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Ophelia, Beatrice and Benedick (in Much Ado About Nothing), Kate and Petruchio (in Taming of the Shrew), not to mention all his love sonnets, provide excellent sources. If you decide on a reading from a Shakespeare play, you may wish to consider the larger context or subject matter of the play. Many of these works include such weighty topics as suicide, betrayal or madness.

The readings we have gathered here are not always the complete poem or passage, but we've provided the title and author for your reference. All of these citations are available at your local bookstore or library. At the library, you can copy down the passages to save yourself the cost of purchasing the complete books.

A Word About Readers
Choose your readers carefully. Asking soft-spoken people, or those who are uncomfortable in front of a crowd to read at your ceremony may mean that the passage you like so much will be lost on the audience. Poetry can be a very powerful way to convey emotion, but only if the reader understands it and can convey it clearly to the listeners. Whereas a congregation may be used to listening to religious readings, chances are they won't be used to poetry. The reader should practice reading the passage aloud, being sure to read very slowly, paying special attention to projecting his or her voice. The more familiar the reader is with a passage, the more powerful its meaning will be.