Expressing Your Love – vol. 19
There are some words that feel as if they’ve been waiting centuries for your wedding day. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 is one of them—an ode to love that refuses to bend, break, or fade. It speaks to the courage of two people standing before family and friends, vowing to weather every storm together. Read aloud in a ceremony, its lines don’t just sound beautiful—they feel like a promise written in the stars.
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;
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.-Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
Few poems capture the essence of enduring love as perfectly as Sonnet 116. Written over 400 years ago, its words still resonate with couples today—so much so that it has become one of the most popular wedding ceremony readings of all time.
At the heart of Sonnet 116 lies a simple yet profound truth: love that is real does not change when circumstances change. Shakespeare’s image of love as an “ever-fixed mark” that “looks on tempests and is never shaken” offers a powerful metaphor for marriage. In wedding vows, couples promise to stand by each other through joy and hardship, and this sonnet encapsulates that commitment in enduring language.
The “star to every wandering bark” reminds us that love serves as a constant guide through life’s uncertainties, a compass that remains true even when the seas are rough. For a couple, this is both a romantic ideal and a practical vow—to be the other’s anchor and North Star, no matter the challenges ahead.
Shakespeare’s relevance today comes from more than just beautiful phrasing. His understanding of human nature—our hopes, our vulnerabilities, our capacity for deep connection—is timeless. Modern couples often seek a reading that feels both traditional and deeply personal, and Sonnet 116 bridges that gap. It honors the gravity of the marriage commitment while offering poetic comfort that true love endures “even to the edge of doom.”
Choosing Sonnet 116 for a wedding ceremony is, in itself, a statement. It says: We believe in love as something constant, steadfast, and worth every effort. It links the couple to centuries of lovers before them, all bound by the same hope—that their marriage will be unshakable, no matter what storms come.
