@Photography: Dan Soderstrom Weddings
Author Belinda Letts (Wedding Belle).
This article outlines my tips on writing your Wedding Vows. I am a Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges civil marriage celebrant and will help you through every part of the legal processes. However, from experience, couples usually feel pressure writing vow’s and if they will be good enough to reflect how I feel about my future Husband/Wife. My tip, don’t put any pressure on yourself for something that will work out. Most couples ask for some tips to writing personable vows. Listing to couples’ vows is not only my favourite part of the ceremony & wedding. It’s honestly my favourite part of my job. Googling and reading other people’s vows is second nature, so here are my biggest tips for you:
- Be you. Speak in the vocabulary you would usually speak to each other in everyday life. Otherwise you’ll be so nervous reading off the queue cards and it won’t sound like you at all. Plus, you might mispronounce all the big words. Be you!
- Don’t worry about the length. There is no time frame you need to meet. Fit in everything you think is necessary. Maybe agree on a time frame together so you know that you’re both going to have rough amount of speaking time.
- Remember it’s just the two of you. Don’t think about the public performance. On the day you’ll be so caught up with looking at each other. Don’t worry about the crowd or me.
- Say what you love about each other.
- Acknowledge the past and how you became the couple you are.
- Take the opportunity to tell each other what you see your marriage looks like. Say what you love about each other.
- Don’t forget to finish with I love you. Attending ceremonies as a guest I have seen people miss these 3 little words. They’re so vital.
I also recommend dot pointing notes about your relationship and why you love that person over time on a notepad (hidden from your other half), before structuring it into sentences. Start a minimum of 3 months before your big day, or now. I love putting pen to paper every time they do something cute or that you appreciate write it down in the lead up to the big day. A couple of months before your wedding, you have all the content you need to string together the perfect vows.
Some starter points when thinking about how to structure the sentences.
- You can talk about how you met. ‘The first time I saw you, I…’
- How you envision your life. ‘Together, we’ll spend our lives…’
- What little things they do for you, you appreciate. ‘I love it when…, or I count my blessings because…’
- What you respect about them. ‘The qualities I admire in you are…’
- Why they bring out the best in you. ‘You have made me the best version of myself by …..’
- Best holiday or experience together was. ‘I will always treasure the time we…’
- Your favourite part of their body (eyes, smile ect – PG please). ‘When you walk into a room your … lights up the room’
- What has your fiancé’ they taught you? ‘Without meeting you, I would never have learnt …. about myself…. or Without meeting you, I would have never thought …. was possible.”
- Advice your parents or grandparents give you about marriage and a happy life together.
- At what moment did you realise this was the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?
- What does your marriage mean to you? ‘I see our lives….’
- Even a song lyric, movie quote or poem you can both relate to, or that your partner loves. CUTE!
Promises to each other are great addition to add in your vows.
- ‘I promise to be …’
- ‘I promise to love you …’
- ‘I promise we’ll …’
Again, I can’t stress enough, finish on 3 words, 8 letters (sorry, I love a romantic comedy, not sorry). I love you.
Once I read both your vows, I will let you know if one is longer than the other, so they are relatively matched in size. I will also let you know if it needs some tweaking (in the nicest way possible). Please have your vows completed a few weeks out from your big day, so we can work through it together. I really love the originality and uniqueness of every couple’s vows. It’s the best love story after all, and it’s totally your love story! I think it’s really special to keep your vows secret from each other and see the raw emotion and reactions on the day as you hear those words the very first time. This is the very reason I fell in love with Weddings after all.
We do also need to include one sentence in the ceremony, which is the legal vows. This is a legal requirement of getting married in the Guidelines on the Marriage Act 1961.
“I call upon the persons here present to witness that I, FULL NAME, take thee FULL NAME, to be my lawful wedded husband/wife”
However, we don’t have to include this in your personal vow’s. Some couples include this sentence at the start of their personal vows, some include this at the end of their personal vows, some use these words with the ring exchange. Talk to me and I can make recommendations what’s going to flow best for your ceremony. The main thing is to work on your personal vows and send them back to me. I will make sure the legal elements are taken care of.
