Wedding season is in full swing, and preparations for the big day can go beyond the venue, the flowers or the dress. If you have to give a toast on the big day or need a powerful quote to go into the program, we’ve selected a few that are evocative without being too cheesy.

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How can you determine what words to say? “A great quote can set the tone for a wedding ceremony, especially if it truly speaks to the couple’s relationship and love,” said Kylie Carlson, who owns the International Academy of Wedding & Event Planning. “In addition to providing a meaningful passage for guests to relate to, it also gives the couple a passage that will always hold a special place in their hearts.”

Fabrice Orlando, a luxury wedding planner with Cocoon Events based in Morocco, advises couples to look for quotes that are significant based on their relationship together. “For example, don’t be afraid to pull a passage from the first movie you saw together or the book that you connected over, or even the favorite television show that you always curl up to in the evenings,” he says. “It will be that much more sentimental if the two of you can relate to the quote instead of [looking] for the most romantic one you can find on the internet.”

Looking for the perfect sentiment? Here are 15 quotes that express love and romance without going overboard or into tacky territory.

“Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past. It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.” — Ann Landers

“There are no happy endings. Endings are sad, so let’s have a happy beginning and a happy middle.” — Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

“Oh, what a love it was, utterly free, unique, like nothing else on earth! Their thoughts were like other people’s songs. They loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the ‘blaze of passion’ often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet. Perhaps their surrounding world, the strangers they met in the street, the wide expanses they saw on their walks, the rooms in which they lived or met, took more delight in their love than they themselves did.” — Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

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“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.” — Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil

“A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person, we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.” — Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever

“Ever thine. Ever mine. Ever ours.” — Beethoven

“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.” — Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

“People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.” — Hilary T. Smith, Wild Awake

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“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.” — David Levithan, Every Day

“Within this blessed union of souls, where two hearts intertwine to become one, there lies a promise. Perfectly born, divinely created, and intimately shared, it is a place where the hope and majesty of beginnings reside. Where all things are made possible by the astounding love shared by two spirits. As you hold each other’s hands in this promise, and eagerly look into the future in each other’s eyes, may your unconditional love and devotion take you to places where you’ve both only dreamed. Where you’ll dwell for a lifetime of happiness, sheltered in the warmth of each other’s arms.” — Heather Berry, The Promise

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you, so close that your hand upon my chest is mine, so close that your eyes close with my dreams.” — Pablo Neruda

“No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater … The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that’s the key. It’s like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.” — Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“If you do not believe that hearts can bloom suddenly bigger, and that love can open like a flower out of even the hardest places, then I am afraid that for you the road will be long and brown and barren, and you will have trouble finding the light. But if you do believe, then you already know all about magic.” — Lauren Oliver, Liesl and Po

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” — Jalal Al-Din Rumi

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