Beach Wedding Readings & Poems

Your beach wedding readings can be as general or personal as you want them to be. There might be a particular poem, song or hymn that you empathize with or has a special meaning to you and that you would like to incorporate into your readings. Alternatively you could choose a piece from a book of love poetry, or spiritual readings. Ask one of your friends or relatives to read your chosen beach wedding readings or verses on the day. Just make sure that you choose someone who is confident and can project his or her voice. Especially if you will not have a microphone.

Your beach wedding readings can be light-hearted or deeply moving. Make your wedding ceremony special to you in any way you can. After all, this is what the wedding is all about!

Beach Wedding Readings make a ceremony unique

Besides personalizing your wedding ceremony with meaningful readings you could also incorporate a Sand Ceremony.

If you would like your ceremony to reflect your beach theme with a ocean or sea theme wedding verse, then look no further. Below are a few beautiful beach wedding readings, lyrics and poems that mention the sea or the tides - perfect for beach wedding ceremonies:

14 Beach Wedding Readings:

From "Gift From The Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

This is a beautiful and truly spiritual beach wedding reading that is very popular:

An excerpt from "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

The following should fall more under poems than beach wedding readings, but it is well known and beautiful as a reading by a friend or relative:

"My Luve" by Robert Burns

O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That`s newly sprung in June:
O my luve is like the melodie,
That`s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a` the seas gang dry.
Till a` the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi` the sun;
And I will luve thee still my dear,
While the sands o` life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho` it were ten thousand mile

"Hope Is The Thing With Feathers" by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.

An Irish Wedding Blessing

You are the star of each night,
You are the brightness of every morning,
You are the story of each guest,
You are the report of every land.
No evil shall befall you, on hill nor bank,
In field or valley, on mountain or in glen.
Neither above, nor below, neither in sea,
Nor on shore, in skies above,
Nor in the depths.
You are the kernel of my heart,
You are the face of my sun,
You are the harp of my music,
You are the crown of my company

The following beach wedding reading is a cute little poem that has a wonderful playfulness about it and almost carries you away to a time when the mundane and ordinary was truly magical. It makes for a lighthearted beach wedding reading and is also a great addition to any pirate themed wedding.

From Child's Garden of Verses. "Pirate Story":

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?

Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea--
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

"Dancing Toward Bethlehem" By Billy Collins

If there is only enough time in the final
minutes of the twentieth century for one last dance
I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,

say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.
My palm would press into the small of your back
as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile
of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,

just as the floor of the ninteenth century gave way
and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.
There will be no time to order another drink
or worry about what was never said,

not with the orchestra sliding into the sea
and all our attention devoted to humming
whatever it was they were playing.

The following is a beautiful beach wedding reading and is perfect for a sailing theme:

"Come Live With Me and Be My Love" by Christopher Sousa

Come live with me and be my love,
We'll lay and watch the skies above.
I'll take you out upon the sea,
And show you what it means to me.

The wind will be calm yet lightly blowing,
The cabin's warm with oil's glowing.
Just think of us upon this ocean,
Sipping tea as a soothing potion.

I'll climb up high into the rig above,
To share the starry night with you, my love.
The sails will be full with autumn's breeze,
Our bow dipping gracefully into the glowing seas.

And as we dig into my coffers' deep,
You shall behold the things that make women weep.
Bottles of wine from the finest vineyards,
And wool from only the most renowned spinners.

These things and more can be fully your own,
But mostly the beauty that the sea has shown.
The most graceful porpoises will be swimming by,
As the sea birds sing with their siren-like cry.

Precious few have answered our ocean's calling,
Shouting out with eyes bright and bawling.
So take this proposal and fly like the dove,
To come with me and be my love.

"Beach Chairs" by Joyce Ebrecht

Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the setting sun
holding hands and reminiscing
how it all begun

Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the ships out on the sea
holding hands and smiling
together we're meant to be

Sitting on the beach chairs
watching people walking past
holding hands and knowing
that our love will always last

Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the waves along the shore
holding hands we realize
our love is stronger than before

Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the changing tide
holding hands with happiness
to be by each others side

Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the sunrise
holding hands with tears of joy
there are no more good-byes

The following beach wedding reading is the lyrics of a 1985 hit song by The Honeydrippers. Even if you do not use it as a reading in your ceremony, perhaps it is a good song to use somewhere in your reception either as an entrance song or perhaps even a first dance.

"Sea of Love" by the Honeydrippers

Do you remember when we met
That's the day I knew you were my pet
I want to tell you how much I love you

Come with me, my love
To the sea, the sea of love
I want to tell you how much I love you

Come with me, to the sea

Do you remember when we met
That's the day I knew you were my pet
I want to tell you how much I love you

Come with me, to the sea

Come with me, my love
To the sea, the sea of love
I want to tell you how much I love you

Come with me, to the sea

"Somewhere" by Linda Harnett

Oh, to be lying,
On a beach,
Somewhere,
With sand in my toes,
And the wind,
In my hair.

And only the sound,
Of the seagulls,
On high,
On a beach,
Somewhere,
Under sunny blue sky.

The gentle caress,
Of the waves,
On the shore,
And you close,
Beside me,
Could I ask for more?

A soft sandy beach,
That goes on,
Forever,
You, me,
And a beach,
So happy together.

"Love is more thicker than forget" by EE Cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is more sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

"Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me!" by Walt Whitman

Traveling with me you find what never tires.
The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first,
Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters wemust not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.

Allons! the inducements shall be greater,
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;
Allons! from all formules! ...
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

"Love's Philosophy" by Percy Shelley

The Fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother, And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

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Beach Wedding Readings & Poems

14 Beach Wedding Readings:

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