7 Helpful tips for writing your wedding vows
If you're reading this blog, chances are you're getting married and are searching for help with writing your wedding vows. Below, we have composed a list of 7 helpful tips that will hopefully help guide you in the right direction!
Decide if you want to go the traditional route and use pre-existing standard verbiage for your vows, or if you want to write your own. Once you know that then you can dive into the actual vows themselves.
Consult your wedding Officiant. If you have hired a professional officiant, they will be a great source of helpful information for you! Some officiants will only use original content for your vows and while others are open to using pre-written (AKA Google or Pinterest search) vows. Also, some professional officiants will draft your vows for you, and send them to you to review or make edits! That's a win-win in our book!
Seek inspiration. If you have chosen to write your own vows and your officiant leaves the vows writing up to you and your partner, but you don't know where to start or what to include, scope out other wedding vendors' social media pages for videos of wedding couples saying their vows. Sometimes just watching a few videos will automatically get your mind going and help you jot down ideas and certain memories or situations you personally had, that you would like to incorporate into your vows. You can also find inspiration from songs, books, and movies. Added tip: While you're writing down ideas, we also suggest notating what you love most about your partner, and how you knew they were "the one".
Consider what promises you value most. A marriage consists of promises to one another that you intend to keep, forever. Make a list of the promises you plan to uphold to your spouse, and all the ways you will stand beside them and support them through thick and thin. Not all promises have to be totally serious though. Some can be as simple as promising to not spend your entire paycheck at Hobby Lobby or promising to not talk smack about your spouse's favorite football team after they lose a game. You can use these little things as a way of adding in a little bit of personality and humor, in an otherwise emotional situation.
Feel the emotions. Don't be scared to show your emotions while speaking your vows. It's a wedding, and tears of joy are anticipated. Your vows should incorporate acknowledging your feelings for your spouse and letting them know how much you love them. Don't worry if you feel like it's corny, if it genuinely comes from your heart, then it's never corny.
Make multiple drafts. Once you put pen to paper and make a rough draft, read it out loud to yourself first. Often times during this step you will discover something doesn't sound quite right or that you want to make a couple of edits. Once you've made any edits, we suggest making a 2nd draft that includes the new changes. If you feel comfortable enough with it, we suggest reading that 2nd draft to a close friend or family member to get their feedback as well. Once you feel you have the majority covered, send a clean copy of your draft to your hired officiant (if your officiant doesn't offer to write your vows for you). Ask your officiant if they will review it and see if you are missing any key elements or if they suggest any changes be made. While some officiants may not offer to write your vows for you, if they are familiar with officiating wedding vows, they can at least help guide you in the right direction with the key details to be sure to cover in your vows.
Don't wait til the last minute! This one may seem obvious, but a lot of couples can feel overwhelmed with the task of writing their vows and just try to quickly write something down the day before or the morning of the wedding. Do yourself a huge favor, and make it a goal to have your vows written another before your wedding. This will give your officiant time to study your vows, and make any last-minute edits, and you will be relieved knowing it's one less thing you have to stress about! (And your officiant will be delighted!)
While this is only a general list of helpful tips, we highly recommend ALWAYS discussing your vows with your hired officiant first. They may offer vow writing as a part of their services, which will save you a whole lot of stress. However, if they don't, we hope this list will help get you started in the right direction! As an added bonus- our venue includes professional officiants on our preferred vendors' list, that DO offer vow writing services! Ready to book a tour to check out our ceremony space?
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