Kathryn Anna on What Makes a Bespoke Wedding Poem Personal

A wedding reading has a particular job: to help people express what a couple means to them. Poet Kathryn Anna argues that an AI-generated poem can include the right names and landmarks yet still miss the relationships those details describe. Her comparison of two poems for one couple makes the distinction concrete: one turns their experiences into a recurring image, while the other gathers them into familiar rhymes about love, home and adventure.

One story, two poems

Anna based her comparison on a poem she had written for Stuart and Georgie, with permission from Sue, Stuart and Georgie. Sue’s brief described a couple who serve in the RAF, met while deployed to Texas and continued a long-distance relationship after being posted to different parts of the country. They had recently bought a home with open fields, a garden and plans for flowers and vegetables. They enjoyed the outdoors, travel and winter sports; Lake Garda, where they got engaged, and Sardinia were among their favourite trips. Australia was planned for their honeymoon.

The request was for a moving, romantic reading for the ceremony, focused on the couple’s married life ahead. Anna’s poem uses the RAF’s wings as its central image. The wings first catch a breeze in Texas, then carry the couple through years apart and trips to Garda and Sardinia. They eventually come to rest in the couple’s new home, before the poem looks ahead to Australia and local walks and cycle rides.

That thread gives the details a role beyond simply identifying the couple. The wings connect their early relationship, shared interests and new home in a single image. The poem also names places near their house, including Ebrington Loop, Whichford Woods and Fish Hill, drawing on research Anna says she did to reflect the couple’s adventurous side.

ChatGPT’s version also includes Texas, Lake Garda and the couple’s home. It gives the story a regular rhyme and rhythm, and closes on the idea that sharing life with someone is the greatest adventure. Anna calls it “fine”: it has some personal touches and follows a recognisable poem shape. Her reservation is that its images and sentiments recur—the couple standing hand in hand, home as a person rather than a building, and life as an adventure. In her reading, the result arranges Sue’s information into verse without making the details feel as connected to this couple’s particular story.

What the writer brings to the commission

Anna’s argument is not that an AI poem cannot rhyme or include accurate details. It’s that a bespoke poem depends on choices about what those details mean together. She says her experience writing published work and poems for special occasions helps her shape a couple’s history into a piece with its own organising idea, rather than treating the brief as a checklist.

Delivery matters, too. Anna says she writes with the sound of the poem aloud in mind, so it can work as a ceremony reading as well as on the page, including as an illustrated print. Her account puts listening and attention at the heart of the work: getting to know a couple’s story, she says, is a privilege, and being part of their wedding matters to her. That sense of care, in her view, is what allows a poem to become a testament to the couple’s love rather than a collection of biographical facts.

This comparison is also a poet’s account of her own commissioned work, and Anna is clear that she has a professional stake in the question. She acknowledges that the AI poem has polish and a few specific references before explaining what she believes it lacks. The useful point for couples and readers is the difference she identifies: an output can sound like a poem and still rely on broad sentiments, while close attention to a brief can give familiar themes a particular shape.

A reader’s response

Sue says she felt both delighted and anxious when asked to read at the wedding. She wanted something personal that avoided excessive gush or sentimentality. In her feedback, she says Anna got the tone right and wrote words that reflected her son and daughter-in-law’s personalities and life together, balancing happy memories with wishes for the future.

Sue also says three of her four sons married within the previous year, and she worked with Anna on poems for all three weddings at the couples’ request. Each poem, she says, was different and suited its couple. That experience offers a second perspective on Anna’s claim: a personal commission can respond to different relationships even when each piece serves the same occasion.

Commission details

Anna invites readers interested in a bespoke wedding poem to contact her through the form on her site. Her FAQs provide further information about the service and its packages. The source article says prices start at £69 and describes that as less than 0.5% of the cost of the average UK wedding.

For anyone weighing a free generated poem against a paid commission, Anna’s example suggests a practical question: does the wording merely include the couple’s milestones, or does it show how those moments belong together? Her poem’s answer is in its wings, carrying one shared story from Texas to a new home and the adventures still ahead.