5 Steps to Writing Your Own Wedding Vows
2017-06-23

Wedding vows are the most personal and intimate way of professing your love to one another. While it may seem like a daunting task, wedding vows do not have to be as rigid or traditional as you think! As a matter of fact, you can choose to personalise your wedding vows so they can come across as more meaningful for you and your loved one.

For those of you who might be a little stuck or nervous about writing your own wedding vows, here are some handy tips you can follow for wow-worthy wedding vows. 

Together, forever
Before you even begin to switch on your laptop or look about for pen and paper, sit down and have a conversation with your spouse-to-be and ensure that the wedding party is okay with personalised wedding vows. Check with your fiancé and officiant to make sure that you don’t go against what is needed for the ceremony; some religions may call for certain traditional phrases to be used, while others offer more room for freedom of expression. 

At the same time, find an agreed arrangement and tone of voice together. Decide on how you want your vows to come across — would you like it to be romantic? Poetic? Humorous? — and remember to go over the execution as well.

Truth or truth
Take some time off your errands and reflect on who your fiancé is and the relationship that you share.Think about how you felt when you first met, what made you fall in love, etc. Let your thoughts flow freely and remember to write everything down. Here’s a list of questions to help rev up your creative gears:

- What is the single greatest thing about the person you are going to marry?
- When did you know that you were in love?
- When did you know that this person was the one you wanted to marry?
- Why did you decide to get married?
- What inspires you about them?
- What is the most important thing you want to promise to your partner? 
- What is the promise you most want to hear from them?
- What qualities do you most admire in one another?
- What is your most favourite memory of your partner?
- What will change about your relationship after you’re married? What will remain the same?

Consult an expert
By expert, we mean the internet. Go over websites and take inspiration from wedding vow templates that you can rework into your own. You can choose to read through a variety of wedding vows, romantic movies, passages of poetry and notable writing on love. Do remember to avoid clichés — instead of using “Love is blind”, you could go with maintaining a similar message but add in your own personal twist on it. Remember to remain true to yourself: your vows should sound and relate to you and your relationship, even if they’re borrowed from other sources. Pick out your favourites and focus on passages that especially speak to you. 

Piece it together
Once you’re done hunting for vow-worthy material, establish a structure and start writing out your first draft. This would be the best time for you to pare down unnecessary content and select the very best from your notes. A tip from a speechwriting pro: Affirm your love, praise your partner, offer promises and finish with a final vow. Alternatively, you could also start with a short story and circle it back at the end. 

Practice, practice, practice till it’s perfect
As with everything in life, this is truly, without a doubt, the best proven way to prepare for literally anything. It would be better for you to have someone listening as you practice. Ideally, it could be a friend who is a good writer or someone close who understands your relationship. They can be there to provide suggestions and identify areas for  improvement. At the same time, as you read out loud, you’ll be able to spot any tongue twisters or extra-long sentences that you might want to work on or remove entirely until you’re comfortable with the end-product. Perfect your speech by practicing your delivery — using small gestures, expressively — to prevent your nerves from spoiling your big day.