Writing personal vows for your wedding ceremony is a great way to share your love, commitment, and personalities. There are multiple options to accomplish this so you’ll be able to find one that is comfortable for you.
Writing personal vows from scratch allows you total control and freedom, but can be a challenge if writing is not your forte. You can make the job easier by following a few simple suggestions:
- Limit your vows to eight to ten sentences. This keeps you focused on what you want to say. It leaves you enough space to share your promises and your love for your partner. But if you get emotional this length will not be overwhelming. You’ll have enough space to express yourself without getting too long winded and boring your guests.
- Focus on the promises you are making. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted with all the wonderful things you could say about your partner.
- Even if you’re keeping your vows secret from your partner until the wedding day, discuss your personal vows before you begin to write. While you don’t want to share the specific words you plan to use, you’ll want to talk about whether or not you want to include humor, for example, or if you prefer to keep your vows more romantic or serious.
- When you think you’ve finished writing personal vows, it’s time to read them aloud. This is how you will offer them at the ceremony, and the written word can read very differently than the spoken word is heard. You’ll hear tone and emotion more strongly when the vows are voiced. You’ll also discover repetitive words or concepts more easily when speaking your vows.
If writing personal vows from scratch doesn’t appeal to you, you can still have personal vows by modifying vows you find online (or samples from your celebrant) that appeal to you. Reading these vows to each other, rather than using the more traditional “repeat after me” format will make your vows more personal and potent, too.
And finally, if you’re more comfortable with the “repeat after me” format, you can each choose a vow that really captures the promises you want to make to each other. This is probably the easiest way to personalize your vows.
A recent article in a local magazine, “Rochester Area Wedding” entitled “How to Write Vows that Wow” (see page 26) gives more suggestions for writing personal vows, and provides some great samples and examples, too.
Consider investing some time in writing personal vows for your wedding ceremony – they really are the most important words that will be said during the entire day. Your vows, your promises, your commitments are what your wedding day is all about.