70+ Wedding Blessings: For the Ceremony, Toast, and Card

A wedding blessing turns vows into something larger than the couple – words spoken over a marriage that ask for grace to follow it through every year ahead. These wedding blessings – Christian, Irish, Jewish, Apache, and secular – meet every part of a wedding: the ceremony, the toast, the card, and the quiet prayer over a couple you love. Below: 70+ wedding blessings for every moment of the day.

The practice of blessing a marriage is older than nearly every other wedding tradition. Long before rings, white dresses, or first dances, families gathered around a couple at the threshold of a new life and spoke words over them – for protection, fruitfulness, love, longevity, and the kind of grace a marriage needs to survive the seasons it will face. Hebrews did it. Romans did it. Celtic Christians did it with words still in active use today. Every modern wedding ceremony, in nearly every culture, contains some version of the same ancient practice: “may these two be blessed.”

This guide collects 70+ wedding blessings for every part of a wedding day. The famous Irish blessing is here, along with Apache, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant traditions, plus modern and secular options. Whether you’re an officiant looking for the right ceremony reading, a parent giving a toast, a guest writing in a card, or the couple yourselves writing your vows, you’ll find blessings here for the moment you’re meeting. They’re part of our complete blessings collection, and they’re meant to be used.

The Most Famous Wedding Blessings

Three blessings appear at more weddings around the world than any others. Each is worth knowing – they may be the right words for your moment, or the springboard for something more personal.

The Apache Wedding Blessing

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place, to enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

The most-quoted wedding blessing in modern English-speaking ceremonies. Often attributed to Native American Apache tradition, though scholars have traced the version most commonly used today to a 1950 novel – Blood Brother by Elliott Arnold – rather than authentic Apache oral tradition. Worth knowing, though it doesn’t diminish how the words land. Many couples and officiants still choose it for its imagery of mutual shelter and shared life.

The Famous Irish Wedding Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

The famous Old Irish Blessing – used at thousands of weddings every year. The imagery (road, wind, sun, rain) doubles beautifully for a marriage just beginning its journey together. For more Irish blessings, see our complete Irish blessings collection.

1 Corinthians 13 – The Love Passage

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”1 Corinthians 13:4-8

The most-read scripture passage at weddings in the Western world. Paul wasn’t writing about romantic love – the passage is about Christian community – but it has been adopted into wedding ceremonies for centuries because the description of what love does is one of the most beautiful in human writing.

Christian Wedding Blessings

For officiants, family, and friends speaking blessings rooted in Christian faith over a couple at the altar, at the reception, or in a card.

1. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace – in this marriage, and all the years of it.
2. May God bless this marriage with patience in the hard seasons, joy in the good ones, and the quiet daily grace to keep choosing each other.
3. Heavenly Father, we ask Your blessing on this couple. Bind their hearts together with cords that don’t easily break. Bind their lives together with a love that grows deeper with every year.
4. May God grant you many years together, so that you may enjoy each other’s company in love and faithfulness.
5. May your love be as deep as the ocean, as steady as the mountains, and as faithful as the God who brought you here.
6. Lord, where these two are gathered, may You be the third. Let no marriage built with God at its center fail to bear good fruit.
7. May this marriage be a small picture of the love Christ has for His church – patient, sacrificial, joyful, and lasting.
8. May the years of this marriage be marked by laughter that comes easy, forgiveness that comes quick, and a love that grows quietly deeper across decades.
9. Father, bless their home with peace, their words with kindness, their love with endurance, and their faith with depth.
10. May God grant you both the wisdom to listen, the patience to forgive, the courage to grow, and the joy of knowing you were given to each other.

Irish Wedding Blessings

The Irish wedding blessing tradition is among the most beloved in the English-speaking world. Tender, specific, and rooted in centuries of Celtic Christianity.

1. May your hands be forever clasped in friendship, your hearts joined forever in love.
2. May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, slow to make enemies, and quick to make friends.
3. May your home be filled with laughter, may your pockets be filled with gold, and may you have all the happiness your Irish hearts can hold.
4. May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam.
5. May the roof above you never fall in, and may the friends gathered below it never fall out.
6. May you both live long, and may you both live well, and may you grow old in each other’s arms.
7. May your joys be as bright as the morning, and your sorrows merely shadows that fade in the sunlight of love.
8. May you find peace in each other, refuge in your home, and joy in the children you raise together.
9. May the road rise up to meet you both, and may you walk it side by side until your final mile.
10. May your love grow deeper with every year, and your laughter be the music of your home.
11. May the blessing of light be upon you both – light without and light within. May you carry that light into every season of your marriage.
12. May the saints walk softly beside you, and the angels keep watch over your home.

For more Irish blessings – for travel, home, friendship, and everyday – see our complete Irish blessings guide.

Jewish Wedding Blessings

Jewish weddings include the Sheva Brachot – the Seven Blessings – recited under the chuppah by family or honored guests. The blessings move from gratitude for creation outward to joy for the specific couple being married. Whether or not a wedding is Jewish, these blessings carry striking beauty and have been adopted by many interfaith couples.

A short English rendering of the seven blessings, distilled for use in a ceremony or toast:

1. Blessed are You, our God, source of all life – who creates the fruit of the vine.
2. Blessed are You, our God – who has created all things for Your glory.
3. Blessed are You, our God – who is the maker of humanity.
4. Blessed are You, our God – who has created man and woman in Your image, that together they may build life.
5. May the barren one rejoice and exult, as her children return to her in joy.
6. May these loving companions rejoice as You rejoiced in Your creation in the garden long ago. Blessed are You, our God, who makes the bride and groom rejoice.
7. Blessed are You, our God, who has created joy and gladness, bride and groom, mirth, song, delight, and rejoicing; love, harmony, peace, and companionship. May there soon be heard in the streets and houses of every land the voice of joy, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride, and the voice of the groom – the sound of celebration. Blessed are You, our God, who makes the bride and groom rejoice together.

The seventh blessing is the one most often translated and adapted for non-Jewish weddings – the image of joy spilling into the streets of every land is one of the most beautiful in any wedding tradition.

Wedding Blessings to Read at the Ceremony

For officiants, family members, or close friends reading a blessing during the ceremony – typically right after the vows, before the rings, or as a benediction at the close.

1. To this couple standing before us today: may your love be a refuge in storms and a celebration in calm. May your home be a place where peace is the rule and laughter the music. May your marriage be a long, slow, beautiful unfolding of grace.
2. May the love you bring to each other today only grow with each year that follows. May the promises you’ve spoken settle into the bones of this marriage. May the home you build together be a place of welcome to every good thing.
3. May your marriage be marked by all the small mercies it will need – the quiet “I’m sorry” at the end of a hard day, the steady “I’m proud of you” in the middle of a hard season, the easy “I love you” that becomes the rhythm of your years.
4. Today we witness a promise. May the years ahead bring you everything you need to keep it – patience for the impatient moments, grace for the imperfect ones, joy for the ordinary days, and a love that quietly deepens through every season.
5. To love and to cherish, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health – these are not just words. May the God who heard you speak them be the God who helps you keep them. Today and every day of your married life.
6. May the home you build together be a small picture of heaven on earth – a place of welcome, a place of peace, a place where two lives become one shared story.
7. Beloved, today you become each other’s keeper. May you wear that responsibility lightly and deeply at once. May love be both your work and your reward, every day of your life together.

Wedding Blessings for a Toast

For the best man, maid of honor, parent of the bride or groom, or any close friend giving a toast. Short, warm, easy to deliver with a glass in hand.

1. To [bride] and [groom] – may your love be as patient as the years you have ahead of you, as joyful as this moment, and as enduring as the friends gathered around this table. Cheers.
2. Here’s to a marriage filled with the right kind of everything – enough struggle to make you proud of each other, enough joy to remember why you started, and enough years to enjoy all of it.
3. To the couple – may your marriage be your favorite room in the house you build together.
4. To love that grows. To laughter that stays. To the kind of friendship that turns into a lifelong companionship. Cheers to the happy couple.
5. May the years be kind, the surprises be good, and the love only deepen. To [bride] and [groom].
6. Here’s to the two of you – may you always be each other’s favorite person, on the easy days and especially on the hard ones.
7. To a marriage that holds laughter as easily as it holds tears, joy as easily as work, and love as the steady undercurrent of all of it.
8. To [bride] and [groom] – may your home be filled with what matters and uncluttered by what doesn’t. May your marriage be the safest place either of you has ever known.
9. May you grow old together with the same gentleness you started this day with. To the couple.
10. Here’s to love – the kind that lasts, the kind that holds, the kind that you’ve found in each other. Cheers.

Short Wedding Blessings for a Card

One-line and two-line blessings for the inside of a wedding card, the tag on a wedding gift, or a quick text to the couple on their day. Each is complete on its own.

1. May your love grow deeper with every year, and your laughter be the music of your home.
2. Wishing you a marriage full of small joys, deep friendship, and slow, steady love.
3. May the years you spend together be your best ones yet.
4. Congratulations on choosing each other – may you keep choosing each other every day of your life.
5. May your marriage be the love story you tell your grandchildren.
6. To love, laughter, and a long, beautiful life together.
7. So happy for you both – may God bless every season of your marriage.
8. May your home hold peace, your hearts hold love, and your years hold every good thing.
9. Welcome to married life – may it be everything you hoped for, and more than you imagined.
10. Wishing you a lifetime of “we did good” moments, easy laughter, and the kind of love that quietly grows.
11. May this be the beginning of your favorite chapter yet.
12. To a marriage marked by grace, joy, and the unmistakable presence of God.

Wedding Blessings From a Parent

For mothers and fathers of the bride or groom, giving a blessing in a toast, a private moment, or a card. These tend to be the most emotional blessings of the day – and the most meaningful.

1. From the day you were born I’ve been praying for the person you would marry. Today that prayer was answered. May your marriage be everything I dreamed for you and more than I could have imagined.
2. To my child, on your wedding day – may you be loved as deeply as you have always been loved. May you love as fully as you were taught to love. And may the home you build together be every bit as joyful as the one you came from.
3. I have loved you all your life. Today I welcome someone else into that long line of people who love you. May your marriage be a place where you are known, held, and treasured every day.
4. To [new son/daughter-in-law]: today you become family. We welcome you into ours with full hearts. May the years ahead make us grateful, again and again, that our child chose you.
5. May the marriage you begin today be the love story I always hoped you would have – patient, joyful, faithful, and lasting.
6. From the parent’s seat in the front row: may God bless every day of this marriage. May He bless your children when they come. May He bless the home you build, the love you share, and the long beautiful years ahead.

Bible Verses for a Wedding Blessing

Beyond 1 Corinthians 13, several other Bible verses appear regularly in wedding ceremonies, readings, and blessings. These are the most-quoted.

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”Mark 10:9

“Two are better than one… 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.”Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”1 Peter 4:8

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”Song of Solomon 6:3

“Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.”Song of Solomon 8:7

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”Ephesians 4:2

For Bible verses organized by topic – love, faithfulness, patience, hope – see our complete Bible verses guide.

Modern and Secular Wedding Blessings

For couples or ceremonies that don’t use religious language, but still want the gravity of a blessing. These work beautifully at civil weddings, interfaith ceremonies, or anywhere the religious framing isn’t the right fit.

1. May you build a life together that surprises you with how good it can get. May the love you bring to today only deepen across the years.
2. May your marriage be a place of safety, of growth, and of unexpected joy. May you keep choosing each other – gently, daily, faithfully – every year of your life.
3. May the home you create together be a refuge for both of you, a welcome for everyone who enters, and a small piece of goodness in a complicated world.
4. May you laugh easily, forgive quickly, listen carefully, and love each other with the kind of steadiness that builds something lasting.
5. May the small days of your marriage be richer than the big ones. May the ordinary years be your favorite ones. May your love hold what it needs to hold and grow what it needs to grow.
6. To the couple, in a world that does not always make marriage easy: may yours be quietly extraordinary. May love be your daily practice and your daily reward.

How to Give a Wedding Blessing

Whether you’re an officiant, a parent, a best man, or a guest, a blessing is more than the words you say – it’s how you say them. A few practices that make a wedding blessing land well:

1. Speak directly to the couple. Don’t address the room. Look at the bride and groom while you speak. A blessing is a gift given specifically to them – let your eyes and voice reflect that.

2. Speak slowly. Blessings are short by design, and they’re meant to be heard. The temptation under pressure is to rush. Resist it. Let the words breathe. The pauses are part of the blessing.

3. Personalize if you can. A line or two specific to the couple – something true about them, a story everyone in the room knows, a quality you’ve watched them grow – makes a borrowed blessing feel chosen rather than recycled.

4. Keep it brief. The strongest wedding blessings are short. A toast or ceremony blessing should land in 30 to 90 seconds – long enough to mean something, short enough to hold the room’s attention. The room’s emotion does the rest.

5. End on a clear final line. Don’t trail off. The last sentence of a blessing carries the most weight. Land it on something specific – “to a marriage marked by joy,” “to the years ahead,” “Amen,” or a clear closing toast.

For more on the practice of blessing – the principles that apply across every kind of blessing – see our complete blessings guide.

Wedding Anniversary Blessings

Wedding blessings don’t end at the ceremony. Each anniversary is another chance to speak good over a marriage. These short blessings work for cards, toasts, or quiet moments between the two of you on an anniversary.

1. Another year of choosing each other. May the next one be the best yet.
2. Happy anniversary to a marriage that just keeps getting better. May God bless every year to come.
3. To the love you’ve built together over [X] years – may the next [X] hold even more grace, more laughter, and more of the small daily joys that make a marriage.
4. Anniversaries are a chance to count what’s been good. Today we count you both. May this year of marriage be one of your favorites yet.
5. To love that has weathered. To love that has grown. To love that has stayed. Happy anniversary.

Frequently Asked Questions

A wedding is one of the few moments in modern life that still asks for ancient words. Whether you’re standing at the altar, raising a glass at the reception, writing inside a card, or quietly praying over a couple you love – the practice of speaking blessing over a marriage is one of the oldest gifts in human tradition. If one of these blessings landed today, use it. Carry it. Speak it slowly. May the couple it’s spoken over feel the weight of what’s being asked for them.

For more, explore our complete blessings guide, our Irish blessings collection, our house blessings guide, our Bible verses by topic, and our prayers for marriage.