Quotes, Poems, Jokes, and Scriptures for Wedding Toasts and Speeches
Even though the typical wedding speech is only about 3 to 5 minutes long, it needs variety to stay interesting. One great way to do this is to incorporate your favorite relevant quotes, sayings, poems, scriptures, or jokes.
Whether your speech is funny or sentimental, whether you’re the maid of honor, the groom, or the mother of the bride – there’s something for you here.
Parent Quotes
As the bride or groom, part of your toast should be directed at your parents. After all, they are the reason you’re here! Using a quote to express your feelings about them is a nice addition to a speech.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
-Proverbs 22: 6
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other wings.
-Hodding Carter
Giving a man a fish feeds him for one meal. Teaching a man to fish feeds him for a lifetime. As parents and gospel instructors, you and I are not in the business of distributing fish; rather, our work is to help our children learn ‘to fish.’
-LDS Apostle David A. Bednar
Parents must bring light and truth into their homes by one family prayer, one scripture study session, one family home evening, one book read aloud, one song, and one family meal at a time. They know that the influence of righteous, conscientious, persistent, daily parenting is among the most powerful and sustaining forces for good in the world.
-LDS Apostle L. Tom Perry
The most important of the Lord’s work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.”
-Harold B. Lee
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
-Theodore M. Hesburgh
Friendship Quotes
A friendship quote is often the perfect way to begin your maid of honor or best man speech. It introduces how you feel about the bride or groom, and what they mean to you personally. It also segues perfectly into a brief introduction of yourself – a necessity for wedding speeches.
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
-Oprah Winfrey
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
-Walter Winchell
It is the friends you can call up at 4 AM that matter.
-Marlene Dietrich
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Friendship is an art, few people have a natural talent for it.
-Unknown
The best things in life aren’t things: they’re friends.
-Unknown
Friends are the sunshine of life.
-John Hay
Love and Marriage Advice
There’s no more appropriate place to throw in some good marriage advice than in your wedding toast or speech. Whether you are a sibling, friend, wedding party member, or parent, you can use one of these insightful quotes to illustrate what you have to say.
True charity ought to begin in marriage, for it is a relationship that must be rebuilt every day.
-LDS Apostle James E. Faust
Equal partnerships are not made in heaven—they are made on earth, one choice at a time, one conversation at a time, one threshold crossing at a time.
-LDS Seventy Bruce C. Hafen
Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion’s joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion
-LDS Apostle Henry B. Eyring
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
-Ephesians 4:32
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
-Mignon McLaughlin
Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.
-Michael Leunig
Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in shade.
-Leo Buscaglia
Married life teaches one invaluable lesson: to think of things far enough ahead not to say them.
-Jefferson Machamer
To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
-Ogden Nash
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.
-George Levinger
The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes.
-Amy Grant
The most important single thing that any Latter-day Saint ever does in this world is to marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority
-LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie
Marriage is sanctified when it is cherished and honored in holiness. That union is not merely between husband and wife; it embraces a partnership with God.
-LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson
Marriage is not just spiritual communion; it is also remembering to take out the trash.
-Joyce Brothers
Love and Marriage Quotes
Any wedding reception speech or toast can benefit from a particularly poignant and well-placed quote on love and marriage. These quotes can help you to round out your speech, or cap it off and signal the guests to toast.
May all your troubles be little ones.
-Irish proverb
The only duration of family life that satisfies the loftiest longings of the human soul is forever.
-LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson
We can not do great things; only small things with great love.
-Mother Teresa
Love does not consist of gazing at one another but in looking outward in the same direction
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Love conquers all things.
-Virgil
Happy marriages begin when we marry the one we love, and the blossom when we love the one we married.
-Sam Levenson
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.
-Joseph Addison
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
-Willa Cather
What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow.
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
The highest happiness on earth is marriage.
-William Lyon Phelps
Brief is life but love is long.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
Marriage is one long conversation
-Robert Louis Stevenson
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth… now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” (Point out that in many versions of the Bible, the word “charity” is translated “love”. You may choose to then repeat the last sentence: “But the greatest of these is love.”)
-1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, 13
There is no such cozy combination as man and wife.
-Menander
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
-Ephesians 5:31
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
-Matthew 19:6
For the Bride and Groom
The most looked-forward-to speeches of all are the bride’s and groom’s own speeches. Even the most curmudgeonly guest secretly can’t wait to hear the newlyweds toasting each other. These quotes and poems are good ways to say what you probably have on your mind.
I love you not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.
I love you, not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.
I love you for the part of me that you bring out;
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life not a tavern
But a temple.
Out of the works of my every day
Not a reproach But a song.
-Roy Croft, Love
Your friend is the [one] who knows all about you, and still loves you.
-Elbert Hubard
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
-Henry Ford
We have the greatest pre-nuptial agreement in the world. It’s called love.
Gene Perret
I believe our differences are the little pinches of salt that can make the marriage seem more flavorful.
-LDS Apostle James E. Faust
One good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are?
-LDS President Ezra Taft Benson
The most supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself.
-Victor Hugo
Love is being stupid together.
-Paul Valery
The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman’s heart.
-Josiah Gilbert Holland
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
-Emily Bronte
A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart.
-William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor
Don’t walk in front of me
I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me
I may not lead
Walk beside me
And just be my friend
– Albert Camus
(the bride may then say something like: “Please raise your glasses to my husband and friend”)
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
-William Shakespeare, “Doubt Thou the Stars”
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
-Robert Browning, “Grow Old Along with me!”
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How Do I Love Thee?”
Funny Quotes and Sayings
It’s true that a round of speeches and toasts without a joke would be pretty dry, indeed. Add spice to your LDS speech or toast by inserting one of these tastefully appropriate (but deliciously funny) quotes.
Each marriage starts with two built-in handicaps. It involves two imperfect people.
-LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson
Our marriage has always been a 50-50 proposition…with the possible exception of closet space.
-Gene Perret
A first-rate marriage is like a first-rate hotel: expensive, but worth it.
-Mignon McLaughlin
My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think that’s what she said.
-Author Unknown
I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
-Rita Rudner
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
-Albert Einstein
Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.
-Rose Franken
To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
-Helen Rowland
When we first got married, we made a pact. It was this: In our life together, it was decided I would make all of the big decisions and my wife would make all of the little decisions. For fifty years, we have held true to that agreement. I believe that is the reason for the success in our marriage. However, the strange thing is that in fifty years, there hasn’t been one big decision.
-Albert Einstein on the success of his 50-year marriage
It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
-Agatha Christie
Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you said; after marriage, he’ll fall asleep before you finish saying it.
-Helen Rowland
The only one of your children who doesn’t grow up and move away is your husband.
-Unknown
Hopefully you find all that you need and more in this long list of quotes and sayings for your LDS wedding speeches and toasts. Remember, for a successful toast you don’t need to think of something extremely original, clever, funny, or insightful. You just need to quote someone who has!
♥ Jenny Evans
Exclusively for WeddingLDS.com.
Copyright © WeddingLDS.com. All rights reserved.
Very interesting and touching. Thanks very much and God bless you for compiling this great quotes. Looking forward to have more guidelines. Thanks
Glad to be of help :0)
hi am the maid of honor….and the wedding is on the 1st October 2016.
I have to make a speech and to tell the truth I am so scared,,,,really not used to talking infront of a crowd.
I met the bride through her fiancé two weeks after me and my husband met him in bible class.. he introduced us in Church. we then invited them for a dinner at our house, and before they left we decided to pray. The atmosphere was so tangible that we decided to have prayer meetings once a month,,,then it became a every weekend thing for 6 months…. we became prayer warrior and partners….. I always prayed for a Godly friend, and God answered my prayer…. and we are like Spiritual Besties# and she asked me to be her maid of Honor… I only met her in 2014…l I love her as my friend,,,,she is 10 years younger than me but it doesn’t feel like that,,,, I teach her about my life experiences and she reminds me to be child-like again…
I Desperately need help in making a Speech…… In my speech I want to emphasize and glorify God, prayer and the Blessing God granted me… it that is our journey of our friendship as well as the foundation…. Powerful Union given by a GOD# Both bride and groom to be are Powerful in God…a power Couple moulded and shaped by a Powerful God
PLEASE HELP ME!!!!
Hi Janine,
Tell the bride and the groom and others what you wrote above. It’s the perfect speech.
It’s from the heart and beautiful.
Trust yourself.
Rose
This list is AWESOME! Thank you for compiling it!
You are so welcome, Ellen. :0)
please I really need your my wedding will coming in a few months time and I need a toast to put on my invitation cards. it should be lovely and biblical thanks
Hi Pauline,
The Brides’ Guide to Wedding Planning has many lovely biblical references. In addtional to Openings, Closings, ettiquette, etc.
And It’s only $4.99. If you enjoyed this page, you’ll LOVE the book. https://www.weddinglds.com/product/wedding-toasts/
i was looking up stuff for my friend to help her prepare for a maid of honor speech and this site was very insightful. i will be using this myself when i get married this year. thank you for taking the time to put this together
You are so welcome, Mike. Glad to help. If you’d like to get the complete book of Wedding Toasts click here: https://www.weddinglds.com/product/wedding-toasts/