A short prayer for a wedding gives you words to lift the couple, their families and the day itself to God when your own words run thin. You can pray these prayers in the weeks before the ceremony, in the quiet moments on the morning of the wedding, or during the reception as you watch the two people you love begin something new. Read the main prayer aloud exactly as written, or use it as a starting point and speak in your own voice.
Short Prayers for Weddings
Lord, thank you for the two people standing before you today. Thank you for the love that brought them together and for the friendship that has carried them through the years of getting to know each other. We ask you to be the center of this marriage from the first hour. When they are tired, give them patience with each other. When they disagree, give them humility to listen and courage to forgive. When money is tight, or plans fall apart, or sickness comes to a family, let them turn toward each other and toward you instead of away.
Father, bless their families too. Some of the people in this room have carried their own hurts about love and marriage, and some are learning what it means to let someone new into the family. Soften the places that are sore and make room for grace on every side. Keep the couple’s future open to your leading, and help them trust you with the parts of their life they cannot yet see. Let their home be a place of warmth, honesty and welcome for everyone who walks through its door.
Thank you for the gift of today. Guard the joy in this room and let it last well past the last dance. Help them remember this day when the years get long, and let it remind them that you have been faithful to them from the start. Amen.
A Shorter Version to Pray in a Moment
Lord, bless this couple as they begin their marriage. Give them a love that is patient and kind, a willingness to forgive quickly, and a steady trust in you. Surround them with people who will encourage them and pray for them. Let their home be full of your peace, and let them grow closer to you and to each other with every passing year. Amen.
Scriptures to Pray Alongside
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. 11 Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? 12 If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
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Pray this passage for the couple’s friendship and partnership. Ask God to make them a strong pair who help each other up when one of them stumbles, and to show them how much stronger a marriage becomes when it is held together by a faithful God.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, 5 doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; 6 doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Read this passage slowly and let each quality become a request. Ask God to make the couple patient, kind and willing to bear with one another, and to grow that kind of love in them day after day, especially when love feels hard to give.
Ruth 1:16-17
16 Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
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Pray these words over the couple’s loyalty to each other. Ask God to give them the same steadfast commitment Ruth showed to Naomi, so that they keep faith with each other through every season of their life together.
Psalm 127:1
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain.
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Pray that the couple would build their home on the Lord rather than on their own strength alone. Ask God to be the foundation under their plans, their work and their shared life, so that their household stands even when storms come.
Colossians 3:12-14
12 Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do. 14 Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
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Pray for the couple to clothe themselves with compassion, humility and forgiveness toward each other. Ask God to bind them together in love, which holds everything else in place, and to keep them gentle when they have to say sorry or let something go.
How to Pray This Prayer
The morning of the wedding is a good time to pray the main prayer, while the house is still quiet and the day has not yet filled up with photos, flowers and family. Sit in a chair with a cup of coffee, or walk slowly around the block, and let the words settle into your heart before you speak them. If you are a parent, sibling or close friend, you might pray it privately or write it on a card to place in the couple’s hands later.
You can also invite others to pray with you. Ask a few people to read the shorter version aloud during the reception, or gather the wedding party for a minute before the ceremony and pray the blessing together. Keeping a printed copy in your bag or on your phone means you can pray for the couple again in the years ahead, on their anniversaries or whenever they are walking through a hard season.
A Blessing to Close
May the Lord bless this couple and keep them close to his heart. May he make their love deep and their faith steady, and may he give them joy in each other that grows with every year. May they always find grace enough for the day and hope enough for the road ahead.
