There aren’t many Harry Potter excerpts that would scream “WEDDING READING” to the average couple. But for the unconventional couple, looking for a different, unique sort of wedding reading to add to their ceremony, these can work perfectly!
As I was doing research for this, I found it was also hard to find passages long enough to qualify as wedding readings on other sites. There are many, many beautiful quotes from Harry Potter, but here you’ll find a selection of passages that could work as full readings (or vows) during the ceremony.
For my readers: Pick up your FREE 10-Page Wedding Ceremony Guide on creating your own personalized wedding ceremony (complete with a sample script, readings, and vows!). If you’re reading this article, you might also want to scour my list of 25 Nerdy Wedding Readings for Unique Ceremonies!
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Harry Potter Reading #1
Sometimes it’s nice to witness how a book passage has been used in other weddings. It shows us how sweet and also funny using a special book from our childhoods can be in these moments. Just check out this couple’s lovely wedding ceremony, where a reading from Harry Potter is read:
If you’d like to use the same reading from this video, here it is:
“A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the Forest lifted the hair at Harry’s brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.
‘You’ll stay with me?’
‘Until the very end,’ said James.
‘They won’t be able to see you?’ asked Harry.
‘We are part of you,’ said Sirius. ‘Invisible to anyone else.’ Harry looked at his mother.
‘Stay close to me,’ he said quietly.”
And he set off. The dementors’ chill did not overcome him. He passed through it with his companions and they acted like patronuses to him. And together they marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot.
Harry clutched the cloak tightly around him tightly around him in the darkness, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest with no idea exactly where Voldemort was, but sure that he would find him.
Beside him, making scarcely a sound, walked James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily. And their presence was his courage, and he was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
Harry Potter Reading #2
This one is about friendship, but what’s more important in a marriage than friendship? The best part about the Harry Potter series, in my opinion, is its celebration of friendship:
“Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with five beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same: Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends. . . friends . . . friends . . .”
Harry Potter Reading #3
“There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,” interrupted Dumbledore, “that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.”
Harry Potter Reading #4
This is a passage from The Half Blood Prince, The Phoenix Lament, which is haunting and marks the end of one life… and the start of another?
“Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: it was his own grief turned magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows […]
As he lay there, he became suddenly aware that the grounds were silent. Fawkes had stopped singing. And he knew, without knowing how he knew it, that phoenix had gone, had left Hogwarts for good, just as Dumbledore had left the school, had left the world…”
Harry Potter Reading #5
This one is from the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 in a conversation between Harry and dream ghosty (dead) Dumbledore:
Harry: “I have to go back, haven’t I?”
Dumbledore: “That’s up to you.”
Harry: “I have a choice?”
Dumbledore: “Oh yes. We’re in King’s Cross, you say? I think if you so desired, you’d be able to board a train.”
Harry: “And where would it take me?”
Dumbledore: (Leaning in) “On…”
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, all those who live without love.”
Harry Potter Reading #6
This embarrassing “young love” moment from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows between Ron and Hermione might make a good reading for the right couple:
“There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
“Is this the moment?” Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. “OI! There’s a war going on here!”
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
“I know, mate,” said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, “so it’s now or never, isn’t it?”
“Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?” Harry shouted. “D’you think you could just — just hold it in, until we’ve got the diadem?”
“Yeah — right — sorry —” said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.”
Harry Potter Reading #7
“So then I thought, I’d like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you ever meet some veela when you’re off doing whatever you’re doing.’
I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest.’
There’s a silver lining I’ve been looking for,’ she whispered, and then she was kissing him as she never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was a blissful oblivion, better than firewhiskey; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand on her back, the other in her long sweet-smelling hair…”
Harry Potter Reading #8
“His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come whether in a month in a year or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.”
Harry Potter Reading #9
This is a really beautiful one– Harry’s thoughts after reading a letter from his mum for the first time:
“He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her g’s the same way he did : he searched through the letter for every one of them, and each felt like a friendly little wave glimpsed from behind a veil. The letter was an incredible treasure, proof that Lily Potter had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him, Harry, her son.”
That’s all! I hope these help some people find some wedding reading inspiration 🙂
You may also like to visit:
- Wedding Readings from Literature
- 30 Adventure Wedding Readings for the Wanderlust Couple
- 25 Romantic Wedding Readings from Movies and TV
