Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions

Vows -- how do I start them??

I have thought over and over again about what my vows will include. 

My fiance and I are being married by an ordained friend, and we have decided that we want to write our own vows and read them in a back and forth pattern, ending with something that we say that is the same. 

How long should vows be?? How do I even start pinpointing what I want to say? 

This is such an open-ended question... But I'm struggling! Not with having enough to say -- just with finding a way to say it. I'm a good writer, and I am pretty witty. I just worry. And I know I'll cry through the whole thing.

Advice from anyone else who wrote their own vows? What did you do to jumpstart yourself and your SO?

Re: Vows -- how do I start them??

  • How i started writing my vows was reading things other vows said. I wrote down a few pages of things i read online that seemed good, and went back through them highlighting the ones that really made sense to me. I have just begun to arrange the lines so they flow. It really helped me get things started, and to think outside the box. Now I'm filling in all the blanks where our specific story makes sense and I'm timing myself reading them. I would give yourself plenty of time! We are sending our vows to a graphic designer to have them typed up in an artistic way and frame them so we don't forget all the things we said in years to come.
  • It sounds like you have a good idea of the format you want to use.  I would suggest coming up with "themes" that you each write your own words for, such as for better or worse.  That way your vows are cohesive, but have a personal spin. 
  • Our minister suggested we choose 5 things to promise to one another... I think we chose, to love, respect, be honest, "in good times and in bad" and to be faithful.  We then put each of those things in our own words.  I think that would be best for your going back and forth pattern.

    As for how to start it...I just started with 3 lines of how much he means to me and how he makes me feel and then I jumped in with "As your wife, I promise to..."

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