Opening Wedding Toast Quotes (Hooks)

Use these as your first line to get everyone smiling and leaning in, whether you're going romantic, classic, or lightly funny.

Toast tip: Pick one opening quote, then add a single personal sentence ("I've seen these two bring out the best in each other…") before you move into your story.

Romantic & Warm Opening Lines

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope".

— Maya Angelou

"Where there is love there is life".

— Mahatma Gandhi

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other".

— Audrey Hepburn

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same".

— Emily Brontë

"If I know what love is, it is because of you".

— Hermann Hesse

"We are most alive when we're in love".

— John Updike

Light & Funny (Clean for Mixed Audiences)

"I love being married. It's so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life".

— Rita Rudner

"Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?"

— Groucho Marx

"A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he's finished".

— Zsa Zsa Gabor

"To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the loving cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up".

— Ogden Nash

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt".

— Charles M. Schulz

"Marriage is not just spiritual communion; it is also remembering to take out the trash".

— Joyce Brothers

Quotes for the Middle of the Toast (The Story Beat)

These quotes fit right after your quick anecdote, perfect for describing what makes the couple work, what you admire in them, and what you're celebrating today.

Love— Partnership & Everyday Commitment

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies".

— Aristotle

"To love at all is to be vulnerable".

— C. S. Lewis

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction".

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return".

— Eden Ahbez

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person".

— Mignon McLaughlin

"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile".

— Franklin P. Jones

"Love is not only something you feel, it is something you do".

— David Wilkerson

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness".

— Kahlil Gibran

Friendship— Family & Showing Up

"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage".

— Martin Luther

"Happiness is only real when shared".

— Jon Krakauer

"Family is not an important thing. It's everything".

— Michael J. Fox

"A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers".

— Ruth Bell Graham

Clean Humor About Married Life

"The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret".

— Henny Youngman

"My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me".

— Winston Churchill

"Love is a lot like a backache; it doesn't show up on X-rays, but you know it's there".

— George Burns

"The best way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once".

— E. Joseph Cossman

Blessings & Traditional Wedding Toast Quotes

When you want your toast to feel timeless and toast-safe, add a blessing-style quote, ideal for parents of the couple, best men/maids of honor, or anyone who prefers a more classic tone.

Faith & Classic Blessing Sentiments

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud".

— Bible (1 Corinthians 13:4)

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things".

— Bible (1 Corinthians 13:7)

"Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate".

— Bible (Mark 10:9)

"Where love is, there is God also".

— Leo Tolstoy

"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness".

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

"May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live".

— Irish Proverb

"May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future".

— Irish Blessing

"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence".

— Erich Fromm

Commitment— Home, and "The Long Run"

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds".

— William Shakespeare

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be".

— Robert Browning

"To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it".

— Mother Teresa

"Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination".

— Voltaire

"Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other".

— Felix Adler

"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years".

— Simone Signoret

"In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities".

— János Arany

"Love is the flower you've got to let grow".

— John Lennon

Closing Wedding Toast Quotes (The Send-Off)

End with something that feels like a confident "amen": a line about lasting love, a simple wish, or a final laugh before you invite everyone to raise their glasses.

Delivery tip: Pause for a beat after your closing quote, then say the couple's names and a clear cue: "To [Name] and [Name]!"

Romantic Closers

"At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet".

— Plato

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides".

— David Viscott

"Love is a better teacher than duty".

— Albert Einstein

"The giving of love is an education in itself".

— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Love is an endless act of forgiveness".

— Peter Ustinov

"We loved with a love that was more than love".

— Edgar Allan Poe

Funny One-Liners to End on a Smile (Still Toast-Safe)

"If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?"

— Lily Tomlin

"Love is being stupid together".

— Paul Valéry

"Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses".

— Thomas Robert Dewar

"Love is sharing your popcorn".

— Charles M. Schulz

Traditional & Timeless Closing Lines

"If you would be loved, love, and be lovable".

— Benjamin Franklin

"There is no remedy for love but to love more".

— Henry David Thoreau

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend".

— Martin Luther King Jr.

"Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom".

— Marcel Proust

"The highest happiness on earth is marriage".

— William Lyon Phelps

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own".

— Robert A. Heinlein

Quick Tips to Personalize Any Quote (Without Making It Awkward)

A quote lands best when it sounds like you. Here are simple ways to make it feel natural in a wedding toast.

  • Add one sentence of context: "That line reminds me of how they handled the move/new job/long distance, together".
  • Name the moment: "Today we're celebrating not just a wedding, but a partnership".
  • Keep it clean and inclusive: Choose humor that doesn't roast the couple or stereotype marriage.
  • End with a clear toast cue: "Please raise your glasses, to [Name] and [Name]!"

Pick one quote for the opening, one for the closing, and let your personal story do the rest.