Some­times there are things you want to say at your wedding that are hard to say out loud. You may have a favorite rela­tive or friend who has died and who will not be able to be with you that day. You may not want or be able to say the words your­self or to hear them from your cele­brant. Your wedding program is a lovely place to put a short (hear that, short) dedi­ca­tion to them. “Today’s joyous cele­bra­tion is dedi­cated to the memory of Kate’s grand­mother, Mimi Dodge, who taught her so much about living life to the fullest.” That’s plenty.

Or you may want to dedi­cate your cere­mony to the people who have inspired the two of you to marry by their wonderful exam­ples of life­long rela­tion­ship. You can mention some, or you can allow everyone to assume that they’re the people who inspired you. Which will actu­ally have a great impact on their marriages.

Tip: What­ever you choose to do with a dedi­ca­tion, keep it short!

Three prime reasons for a wedding program are to give people

1. the order of service
2. the name of music and poetry pieces being used
3. any longer read­ings in which they’ll participate

You do not want to publish short responses or the poems being read. People are congen­i­tally inca­pable of listening when they’ve got reading matter in their hands. You want people listening to your words. They’re at your service to hear you make your promises to one another, not to read a lovely poem. Help them out!

Tip: Keep the reading mate­rial to your wedding at a minimum and you’ll have a far more engaged crowd!

It’s up to you whether or not you want to list wedding partic­i­pants in your wedding program. What you don’t want to do ever with your wedding program is include too much information.

You do want to let people know what’s going on, but you don’t want to provide distrac­tions from the cere­mony. So, forget about the long histo­ries of your wedding party, they can go some­where else! If you want to write anything other than names on your program, you can say simple things, such as “groom’s best friend from child­hood,” or “bride’s college roommate.”

But really, just listing their name is plenty. That will give people the incen­tive to talk to them at the recep­tion and find out who people really are.

This is lovely, if you over­look the fact that they opened it the wrong way!

Tip: Choose your nearest and dearest to stand with you and if you want to embellish, write note before the list that says some­thing like: Mary and Matt would like to thank their friends and family for standing with them as they make their wedding vows.