FH I are writing our own vows. Do we still include in the ceremony the part: "do you take her to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold as long as you both shall live" " I do" or the repeat after me version of those vows?
I think it's up to you and your officiant. I found an officiant on the internet that we are using, so not your typical church officiant. She gave us a bunch of options for vows, ring exchange, etc. Our vows are slightly different, but then we chose the traditional vows you listed for our ring exchange. Different, but I like that we get to say both.
Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
My Fiance and I are having a friend (who is internet ordained) marry us. We wrote our whole ceremony. We start with vows, where our officiant reads them and we say we do, then we go into our personal vows that we wrote for eachother, and then we have another part where we exchange our rings and talk about "from this day forward..."
Hope that helps, when you are doing it on your own, you can really make it whatever you want, there are no rules
We also had a friend as our officiant, and we told him we each wanted to say our own vows as well as do the more traditional repeat-after-me vows. Our own vows ended up being more like things we wanted to tell each other in front of everyone as opposed to vows, but that's still what we called it.
Re: Writing own vows
Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
Hope that helps, when you are doing it on your own, you can really make it whatever you want, there are no rules