Writing Your Own Wedding Vows

Bride and Groom

As a popular New Jersey wedding venue that’s had the pleasure of hosting thousands of weddings over our many years, we’ve seen countless brides and grooms exchange wedding vows. Some have chosen to follow traditional pledges and others have swapped vows as unique and different as the couples themselves.  In the end, both are beautiful options.  The choice a couple makes ultimately comes down to what feels right for each couple, but it is not always an easy decision to make.

Considerations why not to write your own wedding vows:

• For the more traditional bride and groom, who wish to follow in the path of their parents and grandparents, and all those before them, the customary exchange of promises may be the more sentimental path to take.
• If you are more conservative in your religious beliefs, the sharing of sacred vows may take precedence over your interest in personalizing the exchange.
• Or, your decision may simply come down to keeping with the tried-and-true approach, knowing that repeating the vows presented to you has worked well for so many, will be well-recognized and is almost always anticipated and looked forward to by guests attending a wedding.
• If you’re someone who grew up watching vows exchanged in movies and television, or at the weddings of loved ones, and always dreamed of speaking those words yourself, a traditional delivery of wedding vows might just be one part of fulfilling your dream wedding.
• Quite frankly, writing one’s own vows can be a daunting and nerve-wracking task. With all the stresses and duties of planning a wedding, penning your own vows may ultimately be a challenge that you won’t feel impelled to tackle.
• If you or your partner do not consider yourselves wordsmiths, or you cringe at the prospect of public speaking, the traditional vows may be a less taxing choice.  That said, one doesn’t need to be a confident speaker or a poet to profess genuine feelings; though if you don’t want to be fumbling for a written speech, you will need to be confident and practiced in your vows for the moment when all eyes are upon you.  Particularly when even repeating the words of the Officiant can be a challenge when caught up in the emotions of the moment.

With all these cautions raised, if you still feel you want to share a personal exchange of vows, by all means do so.  As one of the most popular wedding venues in New Jersey that has hosted countless wedding ceremonies, we’ve been witness to many vows professed in the words of the couples themselves.  It is often a quite moving and memorable experience for the couple as well as their guests. Some have been solemn, many were romantic, others poetic, some lighthearted and even humorous, and most deeply emotional.

We do suggest that if you make this decision you first check with your Officiant to be sure that personalized vows are even permitted. Some houses of worship prefer the recitation of specific traditional religious vows.  Others allow personal vows as long as the standard vows are also exchanged. 

Considerations why to write you own wedding vows:

• If you feel there is something about the traditional wedding vows that you feel doesn’t fully capture the promises you wish to make to your partner-to-be.
• If you feel that interpreting the sentiment of the traditional wedding vows in your own words would carry more meaning to you as a couple, or if there’s a part of your story that would be best shared at that moment, then personalized vows may be the way to go.
• If you or your fiancé have a particular passage from a book, a movie, or poem that has particular meaning to you, and speaks to your dedication to each as a couple, then you may wish to consider adapting it for your vows.
• If you feel a heartfelt expression of your love and promise for the future together is best said and understood by writing your own vows, then regardless of your comfort in speaking publicly or your ability to craft a refined sentence, then your own vows may be best.

If you can write vows that are personal without being too obscure or embarrassing (remember you’ll be speaking before all your family and friends and it will be documented forever), then at the end of the day, doing what feels right and being true to your relationship and hope for your future together will help guide your decisions.