Elegant Poems for Weddings: Classic to Contemporary

Poems for weddings – there is such a range of them. From the classics in language barely recognizable, to the lyrics in the vernacular of 21st century tunes – there is a place for every kind and combination of words. Only the banal and the obvious don’t appeal to me : the point of poetry is that it uses a different way, a simpler way, a more elegant way…
The poems you choose have their best impact if you integrate them appropriately – for example at the beginning of the ceremony you are indicating what this commitment means to you. Many, many attempts have been made to define love but words so often fail – you will choose what resonates with you and what clicks. I’ve already included a number of definitions of love and commitment. These are poems about the general nature of relationships. Later, when it comes to making your vows, you should choose a much more personal reading. There are no rules defining love but it is generally accepted that the love which compels you to consolidate your life with your partner’s is based on the realization that being apart is intolerable. And that you want to be together forever.
Love is true. It doesn’t change. It adapts. It has no conditions or measures. You can count on it.
This sonnet of Shakespeare’s says it all. It is indeed a little overused, and that’s why!
But read well, it is a beautiful introduction to commitment:
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116

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 wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, though 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 proved.
I never writ nor no man ever loved.