Image by Bruno Rezza. Keep scrolling for LGBTQ+ wedding ceremony script and reading ideas

Every love story has something unique to celebrate, which means every wedding day is bound to be different. Each celebration will be infused with details that differ all the way down to the ceremony readings. No matter what style of ceremony appeals to you or who you trust to officiate, these gender-neutral, LGBTQ+ wedding ceremony script and reading ideas are the inspiration you need for creating your dream ceremony. 

The Formatting Of A Wedding Ceremony

The words said during your wedding ceremony will be some of the most important on your big day. But before you can focus on the words, you have to understand what you want your ceremony structure to look like. The formatting of every ceremony will differ based on a variety of things, but here is a general format that’ll give you a better idea of what you want to incorporate.

1. The Processional

The processional is the beginning of a ceremony where the flower girl, ring bearer, your wedding parties, and immediate family members walk down the aisle together. Everyone will then take their seats in preparation for the couple’s entrance—cue the music. 

2. Welcome Message 

When everyone is officially in place, the wedding officiant will then express a warm welcome to you and your guests (if you’ve chosen to have guests). A welcome message is typically short, sweet, and a personalized segue into the ceremony readings.

3. Ceremony Readings 

This point of the ceremony is infused with personality and special meaning that you’ll want to remember long beyond your wedding day. Typically, the officiant, a close family member, or a friend will conduct the ceremony readings. The same-sex wedding ceremony readings you can use for your big day are below. Keep scrolling. 

4. Exchange Vows 

Your wedding vows are the most personal and meaningful part of the ceremony, especially if you’ve chosen to write your own vows. This is your chance to express your love for your partner before the big “I do’s.” 

5. Exchange Rings 

After reciting your vows, you’ll then exchange rings—the physical representation of your promises to one another.  If you’re including a special unity ceremony, this will take place during this section as well.  

6. Pronouncement

The officiant will pronounce you legally wed, followed by your first kiss as a married couple.

7. The Recessional 

Cue your grand exit! You’ll lead the recessional down the aisle, followed by your wedding party and all other guests. Then it’s time to hit the reception. 

Recommended reading: The Best Recessional Songs 

Image by Kelsey Justice Photography

LGBTQ+ Wedding Ceremony Script

Modern and Personal Style

Officiant: “Welcome, everyone, to the celebration of love between [Partner 1] and [Partner 2]. Today, we gather to witness their commitment to each other and to support them as they embark on this journey together. [Partner 1] and [Partner 2] met [insert personal story or anecdote about how they met, their relationship, etc.]. Their love for each other has grown stronger with each passing day, and today they are ready to take the next step together.

No words of mine or any other person can truly marry each of you to the other. That is done only when you exchange your promises and commit yourselves to this marriage and each other. So I ask you:

Do you, [Partner 1], take [Partner 2] to be your lawfully wedded spouse? To honor and to cherish them from this day forward, sharing your life through good times and bad, offering kindness, patience, and comfort each day, for as long as love shall last? (repeat for partner 2)”

Officiant: “Now, [Partner 1] and [Partner 2], you have written your own vows. Please share them with each other.”

Vows

Officiant: “May I have the rings? These rings are symbols of your love and commitment. As you place them on each other’s fingers, remember the promises you have made today.”

Pronouncement

Officiant: “Now may those who wear these rings live in love all their days. Now, may the love that has brought you together continue to grow and enrich your lives. May you continue to meet with courage any problems which may arise to challenge you. May your relationship always be one of love and trust. May the happiness you share today be with you always. And may everything you have said and done here today become a living truth in your lives. With that, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you married! You may kiss!”

Introduction of Married Couple

Officiant: “It is now my personal privilege and great joy to be the first one to introduce (Partner 1) and (Partner 2) as a newly married couple. Partners in life… for life.”

Image by Vivian Chen

Same-Sex Ceremony Reading Ideas 

Now that you understand the formatting of a traditional wedding ceremony, you can focus on the meaningful words you’ll pack into each section. When it comes to ceremony readings, some couples choose to have their readings done by close friends or family members. Others prefer their officiant to take the reins. No matter who you trust with these powerful words, you’ll want to use these five gender-neutral, same-sex reading ideas as inspiration. 

1. The Bridge Across Forever

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person, we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together, our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.

2. All I Know About Love by Neil Gaiman

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing. This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated, and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain, and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes, is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze, and not to be alone.

It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean. Somebody’s got your back. Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you or send for the army to rescue them.

It’s not two broken halves becoming one. It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing, like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them. Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials. Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours, and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it, a dance you cannot be taught, a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand, not knowing for certain if someone else is even there. And your hands will meet,  and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that’s all I know about love.

3. To Love is Not to Possess by James Kavanaugh

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one’s self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one’s self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another–and to one’s inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon’s own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child’s scars
Or an adult’s deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are–and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.

Image by Lucas Leeland

4. All About Love by bell hooks

“The moment we choose to love, we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom… When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.”

5. Blessing for a Marriage by James Billet Freeman

May your marriage bring you
all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring,
and may life grant you also patience,
tolerance, and understanding.
May you always need one another –
not so much to fill your emptiness
as to help you to know your fullness.
A mountain needs a valley to be complete;
the valley does not make the mountain less,
but more; and the valley is more a valley
because it has a mountain towering over it.
So let it be with you and you.
May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you entice one another, but not compel one another.
May you embrace one another, but not encircle one another.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another,
and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise,
often say, “I love you!”
and take no notice of small faults.
If you have quarrels that push you apart,
may both of you hope to have good sense enough
to take the first step back.
May you enter into the mystery
which is the awareness of one another’s presence –
no more physical than spiritual,
warm and near when you are side by side,
and warm and near when you are in separate rooms
or even distant cities.
May you have happiness,
and may you find it making one another happy.
May you have love,
and may you find it loving one another.

There are a lot of moving parts involved in planning your dream wedding. That’s why it’s important to have a trusted team of vendors by your side every step of the way. Once you’ve got those on your side, check out our guide on everything you need to know about hosting a same sex wedding.  

Image by Apollo Fotographie. See more of this real wedding here.