Wedding readings non religious: secular poems and passages

The best non religious wedding readings are short, secular and easy to say aloud. This page gives ten public-domain passages from Shakespeare, Austen and Browning, each with its source, mood, word count and reading time. Tap Copy on any card, check how long it runs and hand it to your reader.

We kept to texts old enough to be free to use and wrote down where each one lives. If we could not link it, it is not here.

Reading table: ten secular passages with mood and time

Table: the ten readings on this page, with word count and seconds aloud (our estimate, assumptions below)

Assumptions: word counts cover the reading text only, not the attribution line. Seconds use 130 words per minute, our assumed calm pace, rounded to whole seconds. Poetry read with pauses runs a little longer, so add a few seconds.

Table: how the ten readings split by length (our estimate, assumptions below)

Assumptions: the same word counts as the table above, grouped by our own cutoffs.

Steps

1. Say who will read. A calm voice matters more than a famous poem.
2. Choose a mood. Playful if the couple jokes, steady if they are private, warm for most.
3. Choose a length from the second table, then copy the card.
4. Have the reader say it aloud once and note the seconds.
5. Print the credit line in the program, then give the reader a paper copy.

Readings to copy

Each card ends with its source, so Copy puts the credit on your clipboard with the words. Editions differ in spelling and punctuation, so compare with the linked text before you print.

Playful: a smile in the room

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Sonnet 130 is a joke that turns into a compliment in the last two lines. It teases every lover who has been compared to a rose. Tell the couple first, because the middle lines list flaws. It also says “her”, so it suits some couples as written and others after a small edit marked “adapted”.

BENEDICK: I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?
BEATRICE: I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 4, Scene 1 (two lines from the same scene, a few exchanges apart)

This is the two-voice reading. Two friends read one line each, and it takes about fourteen seconds. It suits a couple who spent years pretending to be only friends. Rehearse the pause between the lines, because that pause is the joke.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

Jane Austen, Emma, chapter 49 (Mr. Knightley)

Fourteen words, so it works as an opener, a card line or a reading before your own words. It is the right pick for a couple where one person hates speeches.

Warm: the middle of the road, and the safest

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, chapter 60 (Mr. Darcy)

Pick this for couples who cannot name the day it started. It pairs well with a short how-we-met story from the officiant. The speaker is not named in the text, so any reader can say it.

In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, chapter 34 (Mr. Darcy)

This is a declaration, said by the reader to the room. Keep the pace steady and let “It will not do” land as a small laugh. It suits a reader who likes a little drama.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet 43, lines 1 to 8

We stop at line 8 on purpose. Lines 9 to 14 mention God, so this cut stays secular. It also ends on “turn from praise”, which is a clean place to pause.

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29, closing lines

Two lines, eighteen words. Use it to close a longer reading, or as the line a parent reads before the vows. The ending of the sonnet is the only part that stays free of religion, so we use only that.

Steady: for a quiet, serious moment

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:
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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, lines 1 to 4 and 9 to 14

We cut lines 5 to 8 to keep it near a minute and a half at our pace. The linked text has all fourteen lines. Hand your reader the cut version on paper so they do not skip ahead by accident.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

It is the longest card here. “The eye of heaven” means the sun, not a deity. Give it to a reader who enjoys old English and has time to practice. Summer ceremonies get a bonus from the first line.

I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. I have loved none but you.

Jane Austen, Persuasion, chapter 23 (Captain Wentworth)

Choose this when the couple broke up, drifted apart, or found each other again later. It is the only reading here that tells a second-chance story, and thirty-one words is short enough for anyone.

Reading time for your ceremony

Readings are one slot in a longer ceremony. One stationery guide gives the readings slot 3 to 10 minutes in a standard order. Our readings use a small part of that, so pick by feeling, not by the clock.

Even the three-voice plan uses about two minutes and a quarter. If the ceremony has to stay short, trim the walk-ups first by having readers stand near the front. To see where the readings sit in the whole day, use the free timeline builder and move the ceremony start.

Words that can sneak in

A reading can feel secular and still carry a religious word. We checked each of these.

• Sonnet 43 continues past line 8 and mentions God, so we stop at line 8.
• Sonnet 18 says “the eye of heaven”, meaning the sun.
• Sonnet 130 says “by heaven” as an expression, in the closing lines.
• Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice excerpts are plain prose with no religious language.
• Sonnet 116 uses no religious words in the cut we chose.

If a word still worries you, tell the officiant. Our non religious ceremony script shows where a reading fits and how it is introduced.

Three mistakes and their fixes

Reading a joke poem without warning. Sonnet 130 sounds rude until the last two lines. Tell the person it is about, and read it only if they laugh at it.

Choosing the longest reading for beauty. Fourteen lines of old English is hard on a nervous reader. Pick a medium one from the length table and keep the long cards for a confident voice.

Skipping the rehearsal. A reader who has never said the lines aloud will trip on “remember’d” and “dimm’d”. Ask for one read-through before the day. Our rehearsal dinner guide notes that readers are often invited, and the rehearsal is when they practice.

Credit it in the program

A reading needs one line in the program: the title or work, the author and the reader.

Table: sample credit lines for three of the readings (our example)

Print the credit in your wedding program template and say the author out loud as well. If you want shorter lines for a card or sign, see wedding quotes with sources for lines with the same credit rules.

Send it to your reader

Send the page to the person who is reading, then ask which card they would enjoy saying. Here is a message you can paste.

For the whole set of ceremony readings, see all wedding readings.

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Updated November 5, 2026 by bigdaydesk editorial