Writing your own vows?

[Salayia]

My fiancé and I were talking tonight, and the discussion about vows came up. Now, we're definitely not having a 100% "traditional" wedding, but it's also not "untraditional" either. We basically both agree that if a tradition is a tradition simply for tradition's sake, and it doesn't hold special meaning to either of us, then we scrap it and come up with something that is more "us." So far, this idea is working really well for us! :cool3:

So, we talked about the whole idea of "writing our own vows." Is this something that real people do, or is this just done in movies and on TV?! LOL! I've seriously never been to a wedding where the vows weren't the normal "I, ________ take this woman, _______ to be my lawfully wedded wife..." Granted, there's still a lot of variance in even the "traditional" vows, but EVERY wedding I've ever been to has used those "traditional" vows in some form or another.

So if you decide NOT to do the "traditional" vows, what do you do? How does that work? Any ideas on this?

Chances are, we're probably going to go with the normal "I, _______ take this woman, yada yada yada..." But, we're also just exploring all of our options to see what works best for us! :)

[gwenshack]

We wrote our own vows and I'm glad we did. We wanted our ceremony to reflect us - how better to do that than speak with your own words? :) I think for some people it's hard because they're afraid they'll get choked up or they're shy - I've never had those problems. :giggle:

Ron went for completely mushy and made people cry. And I promised to do his laundry and called him a slob. But it was such a real moment and I don't think we'll ever regret it.

When you go to write it just speak from your heart and remember that you're talking to him. The audience doesn't matter all that much. ;)

[Salayia]

So you guys didn't get together and write vows together? You each said separate vows?

I was thinking about the two of us writing them together and then both saying the same thing... but instead of the traditional vows, we would say words that meant something to US instead of what is EXPECTED of us to say.

So how did it work with you each saying different vows? Usually, the minister says something and you repeat it. What did the minister do during that time? I guess he didn't really have a part in it at that point? And did you memorize your vows? Or did you have them written down and you read them to him? I'm totally afraid that one or both of us would forget what we wrote, and that having separate vows would just be too much pressure on us, but if we had the same vows that we'd written together, we could give them to the minister, who would say them and we repeat after him the way it's normally done... it'd just be our own words.

But, at the same time, we're kinda open to anything at this point. I don't want to close the door on any method just yet. We're just kinda exploring our options! :wink:

[gwenshack]

We wrote ours separately - letters to each other that contained the promises we felt we could keep. The minister just stood there. We didn't repeat anything. We each handwrote our vows on nice paper, put the vows in an envelope, opened the envelope to read the vows to each other, and then handed the vows to the other after we had read them. So I have his handwritten vows and he has mine. I loved it because I had no idea what he was going to say to me. :soppy:

[Salayia]

That is so incredibly sweet!!! :hearts:

So did your MOH and his BM hold the envelopes before hand? How did that work? How long were your vows? Like, how many sentences? Did you guys limit each other, or come up with a maximum number of sentences or something? How did you keep them from being too long? Both my FH and I are pretty wordy! LOL! So, if we go this route, we'd probably have to set limits for ourselves! Otherwise, the entire audience would be snoozing in the pews 1/2 way through, and we'd be there for hours after the place should have been closed! LOL! :redface:

[gwenshack]

Thanks! :) I loved it.

He held on to his and my brother, who was my best man (LOL, yes I had one too), held on to mine.

We didn't limit each other in length. I'd say we each spoke for 2 or 3 minutes - not very long. Both of us wrote a little less than a page. ;)

[Salayia]

WOW! You guys really did go non-traditional! LOL! That's awesome! :)

Thanks for the info! :bbbiggrin: I definitely think we're gonna write our own vows, but I also think that we'll probably write them together. That way, we can both limit ourselves so that the vows aren't too long. I also think that it will be more meaningful for the two of us if we join together in writing what we both feel is important to us and in our relationship. Plus, it gives some sense of being "traditional" in that we'd still be repeating what the minister says, but we'd be saying the words that we wrote together that are meaningful to us.

Although, being over a thousand miles apart will definitely be somewhat of a challenge for us to write our vows together. :boggle: But, we've managed to do a lot of things that most people would think are "impossible" to do long distance, such as go out on dates... but, we still do! :lafhard: So, I think we can handle writing our vows long distance too! ;)

[brendalin]

We wrote our own vows too. We wrote our own sections seperatly and then worked with the minister on the jint part... we didn't want the normal do you take this man, do you take this women. I think that it can really make the wedding more personal.

[xxeverafterx3]

Fh and I are going to write our own but I'm goling to come up with a little bit of a formula. Not for nothing because fh is romantic, but I know he won't include any promises and that's definitely something I want included. I'm going to buy us nice matching paper to write or type them on and that way we can read from thyem. After the wedding I'm going to frame the papers and hang them somewhere in our house :)

[saltyveruca]

I wrote our entire ceremony, but I kept the vows really traditional and short because we didn't want to have to talk very much. :lafhard: Like 4 lines, repeat after me.

[Salayia]

I wrote our entire ceremony, but I kept the vows really traditional and short because we didn't want to have to talk very much. :lafhard: Like 4 lines, repeat after me.

You wrote the whole ceremony?!?!?! Like EVERYTHING that the minister says?!?!?! :blink: How was he/she with that?

I'm afraid that if we go too non-traditional, our pastor's not gonna like this. He's a very traditional kind of guy. He's my friends' dad, so I know him kinda well, and I'd hate to ask him of officiate a ceremony that he's not comfortable with, and again, he's a very traditional person and we're somewhat doing things a little non-traditional. My worry is that he's not going to be OK with this. :bbconfused:

[acidcookie]

DH and I sat down together (well, via Google Docs each on our laptops) and wrote out the whole ceremony with what the officiant would say and what we'd say. I mean, we did very little writing of our own, and mostly pieced together bits from the venue's vows, from Buddhist vows, and other pieces about the rings. Instead of "I do" we said "we do" after several statements about our love and partnership together, and we had the guests say "we do" as well. We didn't even have the "I take thee to be my lawfully wedded wife...richer, poorer...sickness, health" lines. Instead, when we exchanged rings we said to each "wear this ring as a reminder of my undying love for you." And he explained the group wedding certificate that we had all guests sign, which had our "we do" vows on it. But we also didn't have a minister and weren't in a religious setting, so we had no restrictions. We also kept it very short.

[Salayia]

Instead, when we exchanged rings we said to each "wear this ring as a reminder of my undying love for you."

OMG! I LOVE this!!! I was trying to think of something other than the "With this ring, I thee wed." I really, really like that idea! :)

As for writing the entire ceremony, I don't think I want to go that far. I'd feel weird telling the pastor exactly what he had to say. But I guess that's because we asked a friend's father. If we were getting some random officiant, I could see that, but since we asked someone that we (OK, I) know, I wouldn't want to tell him what to say. I feel like that would be kinda rude, and he'd probably get a little offended by that. Again, if it was someone I'd never met, then I might consider that.

So what was the "group wedding certificate" thing? :bbconfused:

[girlggc]

We did not write our own vows, but lots of people do. We're pretty traditional so we wanted to keep within tradition.

[acidcookie]

So what was the "group wedding certificate" thing? :bbconfused:

In Quaker tradition, the whole group marries the couple (there is no officiant) and then when they all agree that the couple is married, they ALL sign the wedding certificate. In Pennsylvania this is legal. We aren't Quaker, but we liked that idea. Here in SC we obviously needed the legal license/certificate, but we liked the symbolism so we made a large (18" x 24") wedding certificate with our name, date, location and vows and lots of space for guests to sign their names to basically say "we witnessed this and support this union." We framed it and now it hangs in our bedroom.

Actually I guess we could have done a group-officiated wedding because legally we weren't wed by the officiant, who is not ordained, but by the event coordinator who is a registered notary (SC is one of the few states were a notary can marry people). Signing the license in front of her in private was the only legally binding part of the wedding, everything else was symbolic. Shh ;)

[saltyveruca]

You wrote the whole ceremony?!?!?! Like EVERYTHING that the minister says?!?!?! :blink: How was he/she with that?

Well, it was my uncle, so he was really glad I told him what to say. ;) And yes, it was the whole shebang from start to finish!

[Heywie]

I wrote our whole ceremony, too, but Kevin's uncle married us and I promised him it would be easy peasy if he'd agree to do it!

We also wrote our own vows separately. It was a beautiful surprise to hear DH say everything from the heart on our big day. He was crying and the
guests were crying and it was a beautiful thing!

I wrote a ring ceremony into the ceremony to get around the whole "I take you... blah blah" part.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

[Salayia]

I wrote a ring ceremony into the ceremony to get around the whole "I take you... blah blah" part.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

What do you mean "ring ceremony?" What did you do for that part?

[britTANNY]

We wrote our own vows and I'm glad we did. We wanted our ceremony to reflect us - how better to do that than speak with your own words? :) I think for some people it's hard because they're afraid they'll get choked up or they're shy - I've never had those problems. :giggle:

Ron went for completely mushy and made people cry. And I promised to do his laundry and called him a slob. But it was such a real moment and I don't think we'll ever regret it.

When you go to write it just speak from your heart and remember that you're talking to him. The audience doesn't matter all that much. ;)
I didnt do my own for the shyness and getting choked up plus tanny wasnt into it lol

[britTANNY]

I have been to a bunch of weddings that did their own thing... One of them they basically scripted the whole ceremony to fit them! It was kind of neat/kind of weird but they were tannys friends and i didnt know them that well... They were into star trech so they had special saying and parts they included from that and then they did sweet things too...

The other ones they just wrote their vows to each other (basically like a love letter) and they heard it for the first time on their wedding day...

[f77g4]

We wrote our own vows as well and each wrote them separately. I'm so glad that we did. Because we didn't want one to feel slighted we agreed to 5 lines each. I have both of our copies in a chest with some of wedding things. My plan is to eventually type them in nice font and use nice paper and frame there. The vows were really sweet. My only regret - I let DH go first and ended up bawling...lol

I also wrote our ring exchange as well - well not 100% by myself but it came from Days of Our Lives (cheesy I know) but I heard it as a kid and always loved it. It had to do with the ring being a circle and never ending which was representative of our love for each over.

[muguet]

I have written our ceremony, but of course for me it's based on fairly traditional vows...I do like the idea of a couple writing their own vows because to me, that's what it's all about: the wedding is about the vows you take, period. All the rest is fluff. IMO!! Anyway, if they write their own vows then I feel like they obviously mean their vows (not that others don't, of course). Don't know how much it's actually done IRL as opposed to movies or tv but I think that is irrelevant, personally. Whatever makes something meaningful to a couple and affirms their commitment is a good thing.