I married my wife in October 2022 and, in the lead-up, it was obviously my job to source the wedding poems. I have published seven poetry collections, I read poetry every day, I own more than a thousand poetry books. I should have read through my favourites till I found the perfect fit. But that’s not what I did.
Instead, for some bizarre reason, I sat down at my laptop and furtively Googled the words “wedding poem”. Why do we all do this, poets included? Well, I think, even though we want to express something deeply personal, the word “wedding” makes us all panic and reach for stock texts. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How Do I Love Thee? or The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe (“Come live with me and be my love”) or Ecclesiastes 4 (“Two are better than one”).
