vow writing help

vow writing help

How to Write Meaningful Wedding Vows

1. Understanding the Importance of Personalized Vows

The solidification of the bride and groom’s love for one another is non-verbally expressed through the traditions of the engagement and wedding ceremony. Throughout these experiences, the relationship between the two deepens. When they have both agreed that they are soul mates, a wedding is planned. With the creation of a life together in mind, the wedding is a send-off to the couple’s new life together. The wedding is a merging ground for the two families of the bride and groom. And this is something to be celebrated. A marriage is the next logical phase for relationships who are sure that they are right for each other. Through all the confusion in the world, the human heart longs for security. And a loving marriage can give a lasting sense of security to the couple.

Wedding vows can be the most personal and touching part of the ceremony. This is the point where your guests and family can really appreciate the expression of personal feelings in a formal setting.

2. Gathering Inspiration and Reflecting on Your Relationship

Begin writing your wedding vows by doing some free writing. Sit down with a piece of paper and let the words flow. Do not worry about making mistakes, crossing things out, or keeping it orderly. Spend some time reflecting on your feelings about your partner, your hopes and dreams for your marriage, and your reasons for wanting to get married. What did you first love about your partner? When did you first realize that you were in love? How has your love grown? What experiences have you shared that have brought you closer together? When have you been happiest? When have you been proudest of your partner? What is most important to you about your marriage? What are your goals for the future? Now pick out the most important points from your free writing, and set them aside to incorporate into your wedding vows.

As your wedding draws near, you may feel overwhelmed by the experience of choosing the right words to express your deepest feelings of love and commitment. Writing your own vows can be one of the most intimate and special acts in preparation for your marriage, but they can also be unexpectedly difficult. You may feel unsure of what you want to express, or how to put it into words. You may feel pressured to be more profound or eloquent than you can be. You may have writer’s block. All of these experiences are normal. The key to overcoming them is to stay true to yourself, and to the love that you share. Your efforts will be worthwhile, for years from now the words that you write today will be an important record of your marriage and a significant reminder of something very precious.

3. Structuring Your Vows for a Powerful Impact

Vows are personal and intimate; they’re supposed to be ‘from the heart’. In reality, of course, many people can’t articulate their feelings or aren’t very good at it. This is why many people are reduced to tears when listening to or delivering heartfelt vows. What they are experiencing is an overflow of emotion. This is a very good positive to take from the experience of writing and delivering vows.

Structuring your vows in the correct way can be the most important factor in writing great vows. You can’t just string together a bunch of sentences and call them good vows. It’s easier to understand this concept if you think of writing vows as writing a story, with the beginning having been what brought the two of you together, the middle being the great times you’ve had together, and the end being your hopes and dreams for the future of your relationship. This is a simple way of breaking down the structure, but let’s take a closer look at the important factors.

4. Adding Personal Touches and Emotional Moments

The goal is to write vows that reflect who each of you are and how much your relationship has grown. When your partner hears your words, he or she should recognize every aspect of your personality and the way you feel about them. High on the list of desired emotions are: love, gratitude, joy, humility, humor, and hope for the future. Vows can be a fine blend of serious and lighthearted moments, and it’s not uncommon for the couple to write funny words or even insert an inside joke. This can work well, as a good laugh together is solid evidence of a healthy relationship.

Personal touches and emotional moments are the most memorable aspects of the ceremony. Ultimately, they are the reason you decided to write your own vows in the first place. Your guests will appreciate your genuine emotion, and the private, intimate words you will share with your partner will solidify the love between you. Even the simplest words, when spoken from the heart, can create a lasting memory. On the other hand, a mechanical vow that shows no emotion or thought won’t elicit much of a reaction from anyone. People may even forget what you said. So this is your opportunity to express the feelings that brought you to this point, and to share those feelings with your partner and your guests.

5. Editing and Finalizing Your Vows for Perfection

Your goal is to remember what you tried to say when you first wrote your vows. You should be able to see improvement between your drafts, and remembering what you tried to say means you did not change the idea. If you can remember what you first tried to say and you see improvement between drafts, then you have succeeded in making an easily memorable and meaningful wedding comment. Now, you can be confident in the fact that this will be preserved in your memory and last a lifetime. You may even tell future friends or family about your wedding vows, and you want to be able to remember it then. Comparing back to the original drafts should have no trouble allowing you to remember.

The last step of the revising process is to keep the unused drafts, brainstorm notes, or anything else that was written in relation to the wedding vows. Place all of this into a folder and set a date when you are going to stop making revisions to your wedding vows. This date should be 1-2 months before your actual wedding date. DO NOT WRITE ANY MORE AFTER THIS DATE! You do not want to risk changing something and then forgetting to tell your spouse about what was changed. After this date, look back over your revisions and compare it to your original draft.

Length of Time Until Wedding

Written Input from Professional: Receive a written offer from a professional to work to revise your comment for $500 or your money back. This is a tactic to draw free revisions from a professional writer. After you receive your free input, take what that writer revised and do it yourself. See how their comments changed and compare it to the original. You can now see which version sounds better, and you did not have to waste $500. This method is especially good for those who are uncertain about their writing skills.

Peer Proofing – From your notes when you were brainstorming about your vows, you should have compiled a small list of people that you trust. Hopefully, this small group of people is a mixture of males and females. These are the people who know you best and can offer good constructive criticism about your wedding vows. If it is possible, try to discuss with each person over lunch or something. A quick 10-minute meeting for each person will suffice. During each meeting, have that person read over your vows and then offer input. Have them tell you how your wedding comment sounds to them and if it sounds like something you would actually say. You must take their input with a grain of salt though. Only you will know if something sounds right. Usually, if you perceived something different than one of your peer editors, it may mean it is not written clearly enough or it may not be the right thing to write.

Self Proofing – Read your vows aloud to yourself many times over. The more you read your vows, the more you will remember it later. Reading your vows aloud to yourself will allow you to hear how your vows will sound when you go to speak them at your wedding. Make small changes as you read it each time and see if it sounds better each time you read it. Make sure you are using words that you would normally say.

After you write your vows, you should let them sit for a day or two before you pick them up again to read over and do some revising. At this point, you will want to make sure your vows are not too long. Do not try to say too much in your vows. Your vows should be a composition of small thoughts and statements. This is supposed to be a basic page that outlines in 10 steps or less how to revise, proof, and finalize your vows so you can be sure they are your best. This is a step that should be repeated many times before you are satisfied with your results.