About half of the couples I marry choose to write their own vows. This allows their personalities to shine through, and allows them to make the personal promises they want to at this important moment. In reflecting on how to approach writing your own vows, I recently thought of a new idea that might work well for you.
Start by creating a single sentence that captures what you’re promising at a high level. For example you could say, “John, today I promise to love you, to support and respect you, and to build our future together with you.” Then, take a sentence or two to expand on each of those promises. Continuing the example, you could say, “I can’t imagine how I could love you more than I do today, but I know that my love is deeper and more profound than when we first fell in love 3 years ago. So I trust that by investing my time and focus in our relationship going forward, my love for you will grow in depth and strength in the coming years.”
You could continue in this manner, sharing how you will support your partner to achieve their goals; will be by their side to celebrate their successes and will be a loving listener and shoulder for them through challenging times. When you’ve expounded on each of the promises in the initial sentence, you’re ready to wrap up with a statement of happiness, love, appreciation, or whatever other emotion you are feeling as you gather with family and friends to publicly voice your commitment to the person you’re marrying.
This approach to writing vows will result in a coherent and focused vow that is appropriate in length, meaningful, and significant. It gives you the opportunity to inject humor, gravity, quirkiness, or a bit of your history, and still keep the focus on the promises you’re making to each other.
A variation on this approach would be to write the initial promise statement with your partner, and then alternate as you expand on what each part of the promise means to you. This would create a more conversational flow to your vows, and would hold the attention of your guests, too.
However you approach your wedding vows, they are the most important words of the day, so start thinking about and talking about them far in advance of your wedding day. You may start down one path, only to find out that a different approach works best for you. Give yourselves time and flexibility to make your vows what you really want them to be.