When you think of winter weddings, the idea of a cozy indoor reception might come to mind—but what if you could add a touch of adventure? This winter elopement inspiration proves that it’s possible to have both glamour and excitement, with an unexpected twist: ice skating.
“We were inspired by old money glam and wanted to create a scene that captured that classic, upscale vibe of a downtown hotel wedding—while adding the thrill of a sweet ice skating date to celebrate,” says Junebug vendor Chelsa Jay. And with that vision in mind, the team set out to showcase an intimate yet glamorous elopement that breaks away from the traditional.
The shoot took place at The Hotel Captain Cook, a historic luxury venue in downtown Anchorage. “The Hotel Captain Cook was perfect for this shoot. Its elegance set the tone for the old money glam vibe we envisioned,” Chelsea shares. The juxtaposition of its vintage charm and modern amenities provided a stylish base for the shoot, combining both timeless beauty and warmth for the indoor moments.
The bride’s dress combines vintage and modern styles, with dramatic pearl adorned puffed sleeves and a sleek, short silhouette that’s both bold and elegant. Paired with classic heels, it’s a timeless yet fresh look. The groom’s tailored gray suit paired with a lapel boutonniere, complements the romantic, glamorous vibe of the winter elopement.
However, it was the outdoor ice skating that really stole the show. “I’ve never photographed a couple ice skating on their wedding day before, so this was a first for me! I’m photographing a skiing couple this month and am excited to capture more of these adventurous wedding moments,” says Chelsea, clearly excited about future opportunities to capture couples trying something new and unexpected.
The florals by The Teal Door brought a touch of softness to the chilly surroundings. “The florals were gorgeous—those muted shades of blush and deep burgundy looked stunning against the snow. They were the perfect way to tie in the romance of the shoot.”
Of course, Alaska’s weather added an extra layer of challenge. “Alaska is known for its unpredictable weather, so we had no idea what to expect on the shoot day,” Chelsea explains. “It was nearly 40° in the days leading up to the shoot—completely uncharacteristic for this time of year. But on the shoot day, the temps dropped to the single digits. We took a few warm-up breaks in our vehicles, but our models were absolute troopers and made it through with smiles.”
The cold didn’t stop the couple from enjoying every moment. The ice skating was a playful and romantic experience, ending with a champagne pop to celebrate. “They had so much fun skating together. It was such a unique moment that added something special to the day.”
This styled shoot proves that winter weddings can be both stylish and fun, even when the temperatures drop. “I left this shoot feeling hopeful that it would inspire couples who are on the fence about having a winter wedding,” Chelsea shares. “Winter glam is totally achievable—you just have to embrace the chill and let the magic of the season unfold!”
These heartfelt nonreligious readings from books, movies, and more beautifully reflect modern love. Image by Mackenzie Bigliazzi
There’s something magical about hearing words that perfectly capture what love feels like—especially during your ceremony. If you’re planning a nonreligious celebration, you might be looking for readings that reflect your values, your vibe, and the depth of your connection without leaning into tradition or scripture. Whether you’re drawn to poetry, literature, or lyrical prose, this collection of 25 nonreligious readings offers a mix of timeless classics and fresh favorites to help tell your love story.
From modern novels to romantic ballads, these pieces were made to move hearts—and might just bring a few joyful tears, too.
20 Nonreligious Readings for Your Wedding Ceremony
“Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare
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, although 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.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair.
Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
“What I’m feeling, I think, is joy. And it’s been some time since I’ve felt that blinkered rush of happiness. This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that’ll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn’t ever tell its story. It’s like something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework. Where things shift into focus for a moment, and everything makes sense. And it becomes one of those things inside you, a pearl among sludge, one of those big exaggerated memories you can invoke at any moment to peel away a little layer of how you felt, like a lick of ice cream. The flavor of grace.”
“Love is an Adventure” by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops like the universe itself only by perpetual discovery. The only right love is that between couples whose passion leads them both, one through the other, to a higher possession of their being. Put your faith in the spirit which dwells between the two of you. You have each offered yourself to the other as a boundless field of understanding, of enrichment, of mutually increased sensibility. You will meet above all by entering into and constantly sharing one another’s thoughts, affections, and dreams. There alone, as you know, in spirit, which is arrived through flesh, you will find no disappointments, no limits. There alone the skies are ever open for your love; there alone lies the great road ahead.”
Every Day by David Levithan
“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.”
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
“Still,” Morrie said, “there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.”
“And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?”
Yes?
“Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”
He sniffed, then closed his eyes for a moment.
“Personally,” he sighed, his eyes still closed, “I think marriage is a very important thing to do, and you’re missing a lot if you don’t try it.”
He ended the subject by quoting a poem he believed in like a prayer: “Love each other or perish.”
“If I Should Fall Behind” by Bruce Springsteen
“We said we’d walk together, baby, come what may That come the twilight should we lose our way If as we’re walking a hand should slip free I’ll wait for you And should I fall behind Wait for me
We swore we’d travel darlin’ side by side We’d help each other stay in stride But each lover’s steps fall so differently But I’ll wait for you And if I should fall behind Wait for me
Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true But you and I know what this world can do So let’s make our steps clear that the other may see And I’ll wait for you If I should fall behind Wait for me
Now there’s a beautiful river in the valley ahead There ‘neath the oak’s bough soon we will be wed Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees I’ll wait for you And should I fall behind Wait for me Darlin’ I’ll wait for you Should I fall behind, wait for me”
Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas
“I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.”
“People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.”
“About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her” by Dave Eggers
“When he met her and they liked each other a great deal, he heard things better, and in his eyes, the lines of the physical world were sharper than before. He was smarter, he was more aware, and he thought of new things to do with his days. He considered activities which before had been vaguely intriguing but which now seemed urgent, and which must, he thought, be done with his new companion. He wanted to fly in lightweight contraptions with her. He had always been intrigued by gliders, parachutes, ultralights, and hang-gliders, and now he felt that this would be a facet of their new life: that they would be a couple that flew around on weekends and on vacations, in small aircraft. They would learn the terminology; they would join clubs. They would have a trailer of some kind, or a large van, in which to hold their new machines and supple wings folded, and they would drive to new places to see from above.
The kind of flying that interested him was close to the ground – less than a thousand feet above the earth. He wanted to see things moving quickly below him, wanted to be able to wave to people below, to see wildebeest run, and to count dolphins streaming away from shore. He hoped this was the kind of flying she’d want to do, too. He became so attached to the idea of this person and this flying and this life entwined that he was not sure what he would do if it did not become actual. He didn’t want to do this flying alone; he would rather not do it than do it without her. But if he asked her to fly with him, and she expressed reservations, or was not inspired, would he stay with her? Could he? He decides that he would not. If she does not drive in the van with the wings carefully folded, he will have to leave, smile and leave, and then he will look again. But when and if he finds another companion, he knows his plan will not be for flying. It will be another plan with another person because, if he goes flying close to the earth, it will be with her.”
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
“At night, there was the feeling that we had to come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.”
“Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix forever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single: All things by a law divine In another’s being mingled— Why not I with thine?
See, the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister flower could be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea; What are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me?
Jazz by Toni Morrison
“It’s nice when grown people whisper to each other under the covers. Their ecstasy is more leaf-sigh than bray and the body is the vehicle, not the point. They reach, grown people, for something beyond, way beyond and way, way down underneath tissue. They are remembering while they whisper the carnival dolls they won and the Baltimore boats they never sailed on. The pears they let hang on the limb because if they plucked them, they would be gone from there and who else would see that ripeness if they took it away for themselves? How could anybody passing by see them and imagine for themselves what the flavor would be like? Breathing and murmuring under covers both of them have washed and hung out on the line, in a bed they chose together and kept together nevermind one leg was propped on a 1916 dictionary, and the mattress, curved like a preacher’s palm asking for witnesses in His name’s sake, enclosed them each and every night and muffled their whispering, old-time love.”
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
“It has made me better loving you…it has made me wiser, and easier, and — I won’t pretend to deny — brighter and nicer and even stronger. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I didn’t have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied, as I once told you. I flattered myself, I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid, sterile, hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better.”
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
“I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.”
The way love sees you. The way love celebrates you. The way love accepts you exactly as you are, and still encourages you to grow.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
“Touched by An Angel” by Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life.
Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
“I Carry Your Heart With Me” by E.E. Cummings
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
“The Master Speed” by Robert Frost
No speed of wind or water rushing by But you have speed far greater. You can climb Back up a stream of radiance to the sky, And back through history up the stream of time. And you were given this swiftness, not for haste Nor chiefly that you may go where you will, But in the rush of everything to waste, That you may have the power of standing still—
Off any still or moving thing you say. Two such as you with such a master speed Cannot be parted nor be swept away From one another once you are agreed That life is only life forevermore Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
Modern Love (Amazon Prime, S1E1)
“Love, for the most part, is about endurance. It’s about the quiet moments, the unglamorous routines, the little acts of being there. And when you look back, it won’t be the grand declarations that made it work. It’ll be the time they waited with you at the hospital, or made your coffee exactly how you like it. Love is what’s left when everything else has burned away.”
About Time
“We’re all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride. I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it—as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life. And in the end, I think that’s the real takeaway: the best part of life is the people you choose to spend it with. The mornings, the walks, the shared jokes, the quiet dinners. That’s what time travel can’t replace. That’s what love really is.”
Anne of Green Gables (1985 adaptation)
“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare… perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways. Perhaps it revealed itself in the most simple and ordinary things—like a smile, a glance, a touch… and, maybe, love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as it had always meant to.”
Your Name Engraved Herein
“Some people come into your life quietly—like a song you didn’t realize you loved until you hear it again. They don’t change everything all at once. They just remind you that you’re not alone. And little by little, love becomes part of you. Not loud. Not perfect. But lasting.”
Soul (Pixar)
“Life isn’t about one big moment. It’s the little things: walking with someone you love, sharing a laugh, watching the light hit their face just right. Love is in the noticing. The ordinary days that turn out to be everything. And maybe the whole point isn’t to chase the grand purpose, but to love deeply, and really live, right where you are.”
Now that you’ve found a reading (or three) that speaks to your heart, it’s time to bring the rest of your ceremony vision to life. From writing your vows to planning the perfect flow, our ultimate guide to planning your wedding ceremony has everything you need to make it personal, meaningful, and truly you.
When Shelbi and Shawn began planning their big day, they knew they didn’t want anything conventional. No big venue, no reception, no bouquet—just the two of them in a place that was deeply meaningful to their story. Their minimal Iceland elopement wasn’t just a wedding, it was a chance to honor their love in a setting that had shaped them from the very beginning.
“Iceland was the first trip we took as a couple. The landscape and history left us speechless and wanting more,” they shared. Their love for the country only grew with each visit, and by their third trip, they were engaged. Choosing Iceland as their wedding destination felt like the most natural decision in the world.
Their adventure led them to an unexpected gem—an inselberg on a black sand beach, a spot that wasn’t even on their itinerary. “We came across a place that was not in our plans. A large inselberg on a black sand beach.” A spontaneous hike turned into a memorable adventure. Shelbi, eager to explore, found herself hiking alone to the summit while Shawn waited below, anxiously watching the clock. As the fog rolled in, Shelbi reached the top and found complete solitude, while Shawn, concerned, began to panic. “When deciding the ceremony location, it was perfect. It was where we had already shared an unforgettable experience—navigating through the challenges of getting lost and finding each other again.”
When it came to their wedding attire, Shelbi and Shawn stayed true to their minimalist style, but with their own personal twist. “The color black is Shawn’s go-to for everything fashion-related. So an all-black suit was fitting for the occasion. Also paired with Vans, came as no surprise as his collection is in the multiples.” Shelbi, initially aiming for simplicity, found herself drawn to a dramatic black dress. “Just because I wanted to keep things minimalistic didn’t mean the dress had to be! I typically dress with eclectic and timeless pieces, and this is what the dress should be. And because two is better than one, we have the black dress.”
Nail the winter bride look with our roundup of cute wedding boots, from western and glam to adventurous weather-proof styles.
Their ceremony was as unique as their relationship—an intimate affair held by an Ásatrú priest, set against Iceland’s dramatic and moody backdrop. “The ceremony was beyond expectations. His words, we will carry for a lifetime. I could not stop crying, which I never ever do.” They also couldn’t speak highly enough of their officiant, Haukur Bragason, who canceled his own plans and drove five hours to be there for them.
The couple’s minimal Iceland elopement continued as an adventure, capturing the raw emotions of the day with the help of their talented photographers and Junebug vendor, Daria and Hjalti from Ást og Hraun. “Our elopement was unforgettable for so many reasons, and entirely thanks to them. It was such a joy working with them. Their energy and passion did not go unnoticed.” Daria and Hjalti’s ability to capture the couple’s intimate moments made the day even more memorable. “It truly was special, to see their eyes light up before executing the most perfect shot!”
A special moment came later in the day when Daria and Hjalti suggested a final unplanned stop at Skogafoss. The couple returned to the place where, six years earlier, they had shared a significant moment: Shawn had asked, “How do we take it all in? I don’t want to leave,” and Shelbi had responded, “We will get married here.” Now, they were back, dancing, laughing, and embracing in the misty beauty of the falls as midnight approached.
In addition to showcasing their personal style, they also found practical ways to keep costs down. In addition to their unique and personal style, they also made ways to keep their budget manageable. “We were able to cut costs since we did not have a reception. No venue fee! We got pizza to go and ate as we traveled around.” Without flowers, cake, or a venue, they had the freedom to splurge on two dresses. “Eloping is a hard decision for most, but it was entirely perfect for us. We are proud of making a choice for us.”
Shelbi and Shawn’s minimal Iceland elopement wasn’t just a wedding—it was a chapter in their story, set in a country that’s meant so much to them. It was exactly what they wanted, from the intimate ceremony to all those raw, real moments captured by their photographers.
If you’re thinking about eloping, they have one piece of advice: “Hire local. Coming from out of state or, in our case, out of the country, find ways to honor the people, land, and traditions.” Their elopement was more than just a day to celebrate love—it was made even more special by the incredible people who helped bring it all to life.
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