The lesbian wedding ceremony scripts floating around the internet have one of two problems. The thin ones read like an old hetero script with "bride" doubled. The "fancy" ones drown in goddess metaphors and Sappho quotes. Neither sounds like the actual couple at the front of the room.
Here's a script written for two real women marrying each other. Modern, warm, short enough to keep a room awake, long enough to feel like a wedding. Use it as written or rip it apart.
The shape of the ceremony
Total runtime: about 15 minutes. Nine moves, in order:
- Welcome
- A few words on what marriage actually is
- The couple's story (60–90 seconds)
- Reading (optional)
- Declaration of intent (the legal heartbeat)
- Vows
- Ring exchange
- Pronouncement
- The kiss
The state cares about #5. Everything else is for the room.
The script
Welcome. Good [afternoon / evening]. I'm [Name], and today I have the very specific honor of marrying these two women. Whatever brought you here — friend, family, friend-of-family, ex-roommate who somehow still gets invited to everything — thank you for showing up. This is the room they wanted, and you're in it.
On marriage — what we're actually doing here. A wedding is a small thing and a huge thing at the same time. Small, because it's two people saying a few sentences out loud. Huge, because what they're really saying is: I am choosing this person, in front of everyone we love, so that on the days when it's hard, we'll remember that we did this. Together. On purpose.
[Bride 1] and [Bride 2] are not getting married because they had to. They're getting married because they wanted to, and because, in a country that took the long way around to recognizing this, they get to. That's not a small thing. That's the whole thing.
About the couple. [Tell their story. Two specific details — the bar, the road trip, the breakup-that-wasn't, the night one of them realized — beat any paragraph of "they just knew." 90 seconds. Be specific. The room wants the real version, not the wedding-website version.]
(Optional reading.) [A friend reads. Suggestions further down this post.]
Declaration of intent. [Bride 1], do you take [Bride 2] to be your wife — to love her, to stand with her, to keep choosing her through whatever comes — for as long as you both shall live? (I do.)
[Bride 2], do you take [Bride 1] to be your wife — to love her, to stand with her, to keep choosing her through whatever comes — for as long as you both shall live? (I do.)
Vows. [Each bride speaks her vows. If they're using repeat-after-me, use the template below.]
I, [Bride 1], take you, [Bride 2], to be my wife. I promise to love you on the easy days and the hard ones. To be your home when you need one. To laugh with you, to fight fair with you, to grow with you. To never let you forget you are loved. For as long as we both shall live.
Ring exchange. Rings are a small physical reminder of an enormous promise. Every time you see this ring on your hand — at the airport, in a meeting, in the middle of a fight — let it remind you what you said today.
[Bride 1], place this ring on [Bride 2]'s finger and repeat after me: With this ring, I marry you. May it remind you, every day, that I chose you.
[Repeat for the other partner.]
Pronouncement. [Bride 1] and [Bride 2] — you have declared, in front of all of us, that you are choosing each other. By the power vested in me by the state of [state], I now pronounce you wives.
You may kiss.
Vow alternatives (mix and match)
If repeat-after-me feels stiff and the couple wants to speak their own, here are 8 lines that land. Pick four for each bride. Different ones, ideally — the asymmetry is part of the point.
I vow to be your home — the place you come back to, no matter where you've been.
I vow to keep falling in love with the woman you're becoming, just as I fell in love with the woman you are.
I vow to never let anyone — your family, my family, a stranger on the street — make us small.
I vow to be the wife you can come out the closet to about anything. The bad mood. The weird idea. The thing you're scared to say out loud.
I vow to laugh with you, to fight fair with you, to grow with you — and to tell you the truth even when it's uncomfortable.
I vow to bring you coffee in bed. To remember the names of your friends' kids. To love you in unspectacular Tuesdays.
I vow to never take this for granted. We get to do this. I will never forget that we get to do this.
I vow that you will always know exactly where you stand with me.
If they want something funny, mix in one or two of these:
I vow to share the bed but not the blankets.
I vow that the dog being sick will be my problem half the time.
I vow to never bring up that one thing again. Yes. That thing.
Reading suggestions
The default "love is patient" reading from 1 Corinthians is great if the couple is religious or wants the literary echo. If they don't, here are five readings that land hard at a lesbian wedding:
- Adrienne Rich, "Twenty-One Love Poems," XI — "Whatever happens with us, your body / will haunt mine." Brief, sharp, true.
- Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese" — universal, but the line "the world offers itself to your imagination" hits differently when you're marrying a woman.
- Ada Limón, "What I Didn't Know Before" — modern, gut-punch ending, perfect at a wedding.
- An excerpt from The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson — anything from the section on the wedding day works.
- A passage from a book the couple loves. Better than any "wedding reading" list. If they have a book they fight over who owns the copy of, that's the reading.
Avoid: anything that namedrops Sappho without a real reason. The room knows you Googled.
What to skip
A few wedding-ceremony conventions that you do not need to include just because every script you've ever read includes them:
- "Speak now or forever hold your peace." This is no longer required anywhere in the US. It exists in your imagination because of movies. Drop it.
- The "giving away" of either bride. Walking down the aisle is fine. Being handed over from one owner to another is not.
- The line "man and wife." Just don't.
- "Husband and husband." Hilariously, sometimes scripts written for lesbians still include the boilerplate from gay-male scripts. Read your own ceremony out loud before the day.
Day-of tips for the officiant
If you're a friend who's been asked to officiate, get ordained with Church of Pride for $20 — recognized for life, no doctrine. Then read our guide to officiating a friend's wedding for the full logistics: marriage license, witnesses, what to bring.
Read the script out loud at least three times before the wedding day. Once in your kitchen, once on the wedding venue's actual stage at rehearsal, once again in your hotel room the night before. Out loud. Not silently. Silently doesn't count.
And when you stand up there, look at the brides. Not at the audience. The brides are who you're talking to. Everyone else is just overhearing the most important thing you'll say all year.