Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions

Proof Read My Vows

Hi everyone - 12 DAYS!!  I just finished up my vows and I'd really like someone to read them and let me know if they flow well together.  Can I get some constructive feedback on them please:

As I think of the many ways our love has made me feel the most powerful among them is safe. 

From the moment we met when our eyes both said ‘I already love you’ – you made me feel safe and protected.  Your arms have since been my sanctuary from the day’s stresses and the nights worries.  Your smile tells me each and every time I see it that you love me, that you love the life we’ve created and that your love is unbreakable.  Your eyes truly are the window to your soul.  Through them I know that although life has been more than challenging you’re willing to give it another shot because that’s the kind of man you are.  You are strong enough to keep moving forward, brave enough to open your heart again and vulnerable enough to know that you’re worth it.

As cliché as it sounds – I knew I loved you before we met.  When you stroked the side of my face the first time we met – my heart whispered thank you.  I knew that in you I would find many things that life had yet to send me.  Through you I have found trust, strength, courage, bravery and acceptance.  I have learnt that true love is a connection beyond words; it is being connected through mind, heart and soul.  You my love are the only person who has seen the inside of my soul and my commitment to you is that you will be the only person to know me that way.  I have reserved that space for you – my one, my only and my true soul mate.  

We’ve talked about it many times how love does not seem like a measurable way to express what we feel for each other.  It does not seem like it is all encompassing of what we want to say.  Today as we stand before our family and friends and profess that love and commit to each other I can only say I love you in an unsurmountable way and that I am forever grateful and blessed that you have come into my life.

I commit to you today to be your wife, I also commit to you to be your safe haven, your strength when you are weak, your peaceful sanctuary when life has become chaotic and to be your best friend always supporting and building you up.  I will be in your corner fighting for you and I will celebrate your victories with you.  I promise to be faithful and honest in every way, to encourage and inspire you, to laugh with you and to listen to you.  I promise to love myself so that I may continue to love you and to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be for you and our family. 

Never before had I thought that through loving someone I would feel free.  You have helped me build my wings and encouraged me to spread them and fly – with brave wings we will fly together for all the days of our lives. I love you.


Re: Proof Read My Vows

  • SIMARDTM said:
    Hi everyone - 12 DAYS!!  I just finished up my vows and I'd really like someone to read them and let me know if they flow well together.  Can I get some constructive feedback on them please:

    As I think of the many ways our love has made me feel the most powerful among them is safe. 

    From the moment we met when our eyes both said ‘I already love you’ – you made me feel safe and protected.  Your arms have since been my sanctuary from the day’s stresses and the nights worries.  Your smile tells me each and every time I see it that you love me, that you love the life we’ve created and that your love is unbreakable.  Your eyes truly are the window to your soul.  Through them I know that although life has been more than challenging you’re willing to give it another shot because that’s the kind of man you are.  You are strong enough to keep moving forward, brave enough to open your heart again and vulnerable enough to know that you’re worth it.

    As cliché as it sounds – I knew I loved you before we met.  When you stroked the side of my face the first time we met – my heart whispered thank you.  I knew that in you I would find many things that life had yet to send me.  Through you I have found trust, strength, courage, bravery and acceptance.  I have learnt that true love is a connection beyond words; it is being connected through mind, heart and soul.  You my love are the only person who has seen the inside of my soul and my commitment to you is that you will be the only person to know me that way.  I have reserved that space for you – my one, my only and my true soul mate.  

    We’ve talked about it many times how love does not seem like a measurable way to express what we feel for each other.  It does not seem like it is all encompassing of what we want to say.  Today as we stand before our family and friends and profess that love and commit to each other I can only say I love you in an unsurmountable way and that I am forever grateful and blessed that you have come into my life.

    I commit to you today to be your wife, I also commit to you to be your safe haven, your strength when you are weak, your peaceful sanctuary when life has become chaotic and to be your best friend always supporting and building you up.  I will be in your corner fighting for you and I will celebrate your victories with you.  I promise to be faithful and honest in every way, to encourage and inspire you, to laugh with you and to listen to you.  I promise to love myself so that I may continue to love you and to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be for you and our family. 

    Never before had I thought that through loving someone I would feel free.  You have helped me build my wings and encouraged me to spread them and fly – with brave wings we will fly together for all the days of our lives. I love you.


    Vows are promises, not a verbal love letter.  Stick with the promises.  Put the rest in a letter you give to your beloved on the day of or the day before your wedding.  
  • Only the second to last paragraph contains vows.  The rest comes off like verbal PDA which should be shared with your FI in private if at all.
  • If at all? That's interesting - so even if I decided to change the format you don't think it's appropriate to express that amount of love for your fiancé?
  • SIMARDTM said:
    If at all? That's interesting - so even if I decided to change the format you don't think it's appropriate to express that amount of love for your fiancé?

    Not at your wedding ceremony, in the presence of others.

    The kinds of very intense feelings that you had in the rest of your piece are also very intimate, not to be shared with the rest of the world.  Your ceremony is supposed to be a public event, not a private one, so its content should not include things that are so intimate and intense that they will make others witnessing it uncomfortable.

  • I agree with PPs. And your vows don't need to be lengthy anyway. Think about the traditional ones: sickness, health, richer, poorer, til death do we part (or as long as we both shall live if you prefer not to mention death explicitly), DONE. The paragraph containing your vows is perfect. Send the rest to your future spouse in a private love letter.
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  • SIMARDTM said:
    If at all? That's interesting - so even if I decided to change the format you don't think it's appropriate to express that amount of love for your fiancé?
    This is not what vows are for.  The wedding is a ceremony where you legally change your status from two single persons to a united couple.  Your vows are the promises you make to each other in front of witnesses.
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  • CMGragain said:
    SIMARDTM said:
    If at all? That's interesting - so even if I decided to change the format you don't think it's appropriate to express that amount of love for your fiancé?
    This is not what vows are for.  The wedding is a ceremony where you legally change your status from two single persons to a united couple.  Your vows are the promises you make to each other in front of witnesses.
    OP is responding to Jen's comment that the love letter parts should be shared in private if at all. Jen is implying that those thoughts shouldn't even be shared in private, which is what the OP is questioning. At least that's how I read Jen's comments.

    OP, I find a lot of what you wrote a little barfy. I'd probably be rolling my eyes if I heard that at a wedding. It's too over the top. That's why it should be shared with your new husband in private. 
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  • Jen4948Jen4948 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    edited September 2015


    CMGragain said:


    SIMARDTM said:

    If at all? That's interesting - so even if I decided to change the format you don't think it's appropriate to express that amount of love for your fiancé?

    This is not what vows are for.  The wedding is a ceremony where you legally change your status from two single persons to a united couple.  Your vows are the promises you make to each other in front of witnesses.

    OP is responding to Jen's comment that the love letter parts should be shared in private if at all. Jen is implying that those thoughts shouldn't even be shared in private, which is what the OP is questioning. At least that's how I read Jen's comments.

    OP, I find a lot of what you wrote a little barfy. I'd probably be rolling my eyes if I heard that at a wedding. It's too over the top. That's why it should be shared with your new husband in private. 


    Actually, I wasn't saying that. It's entirely up to the OP and her FI what they do and say to each other in private. But it doesn't belong in a ceremony that is supposed to take place in the presence of witnesses.
  • I agree w/ the others.  Limit to that one paragraph for your actual vows.

    This sounds terrible, but if my FI got up there and read me a letter or "vows" that were that long, I'd start getting bored.  Now, I'm not you and my FI is not your FI so maybe you all are into long professions of love.  But I would think your guests don't want to sit and hear all that.  

    I think the idea of putting the rest of it in a love letter for your FI to read before the ceremony is quite nice.
    Married 9.12.15
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  • Thanks all - I haven't attended many weddings and my assumption was that's how it went.  LOL.  I liked the idea of us verablizing each other significance to each other as most of our families know the struggles we've both been through to get where we are.  I assumed it was the norm.
  • SIMARDTM said:
    Thanks all - I haven't attended many weddings and my assumption was that's how it went.  LOL.  I liked the idea of us verablizing each other significance to each other as most of our families know the struggles we've both been through to get where we are.  I assumed it was the norm.
    Verbalizing significance and struggles are not vows.  And struggles you've already been through don't belong in a wedding ceremony.  I would think the most you'd want to do is let your officiant open with, "Bride and Groom have been through a lot to get to today.  But here we are, ready to witness their devotion and celebrate with them as they join to become husband and wife."
  • SIMARDTM said:
    Thanks all - I haven't attended many weddings and my assumption was that's how it went.  LOL.  I liked the idea of us verablizing each other significance to each other as most of our families know the struggles we've both been through to get where we are.  I assumed it was the norm.
    You're welcome-we can understand that this is new for you.  But yes, instead of verbalizing your significance to each other and recounting the struggles you've both been through (especially if everyone there already knows about), I'd focus instead on what you're actually promising each other in the act of becoming a couple.  That's why the second-to-last paragraph works well as vows but why we wouldn't use the rest.
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