Written by award-winning, widely published author
You may have spent hours searching “wedding poems” online. You may have heard the same readings or poems again and again at weddings you’ve attended. But none of these seem quite right for you. Why not take this opportunity to make your wedding even more unique to who you are as a couple? A commissioned wedding poem (traditionally called an “epithalamion”) written about the engaged couple is a centuries old tradition. It is my mission to “bring back the epithalamion”!
For my wedding 13 years go, I wrote a poem to encapsulate who my husband and I were at that moment in time. I didn’t realize at the time that this poem would become one of the most important heirlooms of that day. It was used in the wedding program, and I also included it as the first page in our wedding album. (Later, it was published in my first book and in the national literary journal Mid-American Review as their Editor’s Choice Award).
Background
I began Something True because I noticed there were few poets writing custom wedding poems in a contemporary literary style. I’ve seen commissioned poems that are vague, mushy, and not specific to a couple. Here’s the difference: I avoid cheesiness, over-sentimentality, sing-songiness, and rhyming. I aim for authentic, clear images of people, places, and moments.
I earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Purdue University, and my poems have been published in many of the top literary journals and anthologies in the U.S. such as Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, The Southern Review, Boston Review, and Gettysburg Review; my first book of poems won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry. I have been featured on The Academy of American Poets, Poetry Daily, and in The Best Small Fictions.
You have probably customized every detail of your wedding to reflect who you are. Interested in how a custom, original literary poem might enhance your ceremony? Please feel free to contact me, explore sample poems, and reserve your own wedding poem below.