📖 Scripture Readings for Your Wedding Ceremony in Phoenix, Arizona
As a wedding officiant and celebrant in Phoenix, Arizona, I often work with couples who wish to include scripture readings as a meaningful part of their ceremony. Whether you're planning a religious, interfaith, or spiritual wedding, these passages can reflect the values, traditions, and love that brought you together.
Couples choose Bible verses for many reasons:
To honor the spiritual foundation of their relationship
To reflect divine guidance in their journey to one another
To celebrate the wisdom and values they live by
To pay tribute to family traditions, including parents or grandparents
Scripture can be read aloud during the ceremony—by your Phoenix wedding officiant, a family member, or a close friend. It can also be included in your invitation design, printed on place cards, or shared during a blessing before the meal.
💍 Popular Bible Verses for Arizona Weddings:
Below is a curated list of the most beloved scripture readings chosen by couples across Phoenix and surrounding areas.
Scripture can be read during the ceremony, either by your officiant or to include a family member or friend. It can also be included as a part of a grace before the meal. You can even include it on an invitation or place card.
In no particular order, here are the most popular Bible verses at weddings:
1. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
Love isn’t just an emotion. It’s full of actions as this passage indicates.
2. Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Devotion in love is putting the needs of your spouse above your own.
3. Ephesians 5:22-33
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Take care to include all of this passage. Too often the rest of the verses (25-33) are omitted after the first three. Marriage is a balance with each partner sharing equally in the duties and responsibilities.
4. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
This passage highlights the importance of partnership in marriage. But more than the partnership between you two; there is also the inclusion of God suggested as the third strand. This is also used during the ‘3 cords’ unity element.
5. Song of Songs 8:6-7
6 Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
7 Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.
Passionate love is a great and powerful force.
6. Colossians 3:14-17
14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
These verses speak to followers of Christ as their guiding force. For a couple, this passage reminds them to follow the example of Christ and act out of love and faith.
7. Ephesians 4:2-3
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
This is great advice for any couple. Throughout your marriage, always strive for humility, patience and forbearance with each other.
8. John 15:12
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Short and right to the point – love one another.
9. 1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Also, right to the point.
10. 1 John 4:16-19
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because He first loved us.
Will you live a life of fear, or love? This passage reminds us that we have a choice. As you come to rely on and love one another more and more, you will find there is less to fear.
11. 1 John 4:12
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Love is the expression of true faith. In it, faith becomes action.
12. Proverbs 3:3-4
3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Then you will win favor and a good name
in the sight of God and man.
There is great wisdom in this passage. Always holding on to love and faithfulness is a great way to live.
13. Matthew 19:4-6
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator “˜made them male and female,'5 and said, “˜For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
This passage points out the importance of balance in a relationship. Some churches see in this a sacramental bond between two people. Care must be taken to honor the importance of unity within a marriage. Let nothing separate them and let them share in the intimacy of being one. *WARNING* Becoming one does not permit unhealthy boundaries or codependency. In order to keep that unity, it’s important to maintain independence in one’s own growth and experiencing of life.
More Ideas
Is there a passage that’s special for the two of you? It can be anything from a love poem (even something you’ve written), a book, a song, whatever words that have meaning for you. Here are just a few I have used:
Kahlil Gibran is a Lebanese-American poet of the last century. His poem On Marriage is a classic!
William Shakespeare Love Sonnets as well as many of the classical poets have much to offer on the subject.
Love him or hate him Dr. Seuss’’s Oh The Places You’ll Go has some good quotes.
Shel Silverstein, another great writer has some good quotes too.