How to Write Your Own Wedding Vows

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Categories: How Tos

  • Are you planning to write personalized wedding vows? Whether you want to enhance traditional vows or write your own from scratch, this page offers you step-by-step instructions on how to write your own wedding vows

  • Before You Begin

    • Decide whether or not you will write personalized wedding vows.
    1. From civil weddings to Catholic weddings, each type of ceremony has a set of traditional wedding vows. Read the vows for the type of wedding that you're planning to have, and make sure that you understand them. If the "set" words fail to express the depth, character and commitment of your impending union, write your own. It is a great way to share your feelings for your partner-to-be, as well as announce them to the family and friends, who will share your big day with you.
    2. Some institutions allow personalized vows, others don't. Get clearance from your officiator before writing your own wedding vows.
    3. Sit down with your fiancé and decide whether you want to say the same vows to each other, or whether you will each say something different.

  • Step 1: Write Your Wedding Vows

    • Now that you've read the traditional vows for your ceremony and determined a structure, you're ready to start writing.
    1. In the months and weeks before the wedding, jot down your thoughts about the relationship, hopes for the future and promises you'd like to keep.
    2. Once you've drawn up a list of ideas, decide on the content and tone of the vows. You don't want the bride cracking a series of sentimental jokes while the groom solemnly declares his eternal fidelity.
    3. Keep your vows short and sweet. They'll be easier to memorize and more likely to hold your audience's attention.
    4. If you're enhancing traditional wedding vows, add just a few sentences. If concepts or phrasing of traditional vows bothers you, feels antiquated, or seems just plain grim, consider editing them out or modernizing the language.
    5. If you're writing your own vows from scratch, keep them roughly the same length as traditional vows.
    6. Find an anecdote or a quotation that describes your relationship or expresses your feelings:
      1. Search for appropriate words from popular poems, movies, songs or novels.
      2. Search Shakespeare's plays and poems.
    7. Traditional wedding vows lay out the basic wedding promises, such as fidelity, honor, respect and obedience. To personalize those vows, consider the following questions:
      1. What do you love most about your betrothed?
      2. What experience or emotion moved you to marry?
      3. What are the core values that hold you together?
      4. How have the challenges you've overcome shaped your hopes for the future?
      5. If and when things get tough, what promises will hold you together?
      6. What promises do you and your partner want to make in front of witnesses?
    8. Once your vows are written, rewrite them. Cut out any words that are unnecessary.

  • Sample Wedding Vows

    1. Start with a Quote: Brandy, my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. (From Romeo and Juliet)
    2. Follow that with a Memory: The moment I saw you, my heart left my body. For the first time, I learned how to give my love, and I received more love than I ever could have imagined possible if I hadn't met you.
    3. State Your Reasons for Marrying: (Use humor if appropriate.) I will never find another woman who will drag me out of bed at 5 a.m. to jog and who can drink me under the table.
    4. Transition Smoothly to Your Vows: For these reasons...
    5. Add the Traditional Vows: (Skip this step if you're not using traditional vows.) I, Brandon, take you Brandy for my wife to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.
    6. Add Personal Promises:
      • Athletes: I, Brandon, promise to be your running partner until our knees give out.
      • Achievers: I, Brandy, promise to push you to reach the limits of your potential.
      • Daredevils: I, Brandon, promise to sky dive with you over every country in Africa.

  • Original Vows from Real Weddings

    1. Five sample original wedding vows from The Knot.
    2. Blogger Chris Pirillo's wedding vows and his wife Ponzi's response.
    3. A video of personalized wedding vows that bring the house down.

  • Step 2: Proof and Practice Your Vows

    1. Read over your vows and polish anything that doesn't sound or feel right.
    2. Once they are written, show the vows to your wedding officiator for approval and feedback.
    3. Once you feel good about the vows you have written, read your vows to a friend who can make suggestions and edit them for grammar, tone and clarity.
    4. Read over your vows and practice saying them in the mirror until you've got them memorized.
    5. If you're writing together, practice reading your vows aloud with your fiancé.
    6. Write both sets of vows down on elegant paper and give them to your best man and maid of honor in case you need to read them at the altar.

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