WEDDING VOW WORKSHOP
Most of this book is meant to help you make a wedding ceremony unique, which will heighten the guest experience at a wedding, but uniqueness is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to remember to pay your vendors. (Kidding! Sort of.) At the heart of the entire enterprise of getting married is the game-changing connection that happens between two people.
When two people love each other constantly, when they find that their lives, their happiness, and their dreams are intertwined, and they decide that they would always like this to be the case, they should think about how to maintain this most powerful connection. Wedding vows outline the couple’s plan for doing this.
The best weddings and the best wedding ceremonies are the best not for all the superficial showy trappings, not for the choices of decor, venue, food, drink, music, gifts, lighting, etc., but rather for the underlying truth that two people who love each other are getting married for all the right reasons.
As I’ve established, questions illuminate information; here, then, are some questions to consider when writing your vows:
Think of who you were as people back when you met versus who you are as people today: how have you changed? Do these changes make you feel proud? Do they surprise you? Do they affirm something you suspected from the very first moment you met?
What specific qualities of your partner do you most appreciate? Are these qualities things that you would also like to offer your partner?
What are the most grandiose, general things you would like your partner to have or experience?
What are the minutest, most specific things you would like your partner to have or experience?
Is there any kind of expression or thing to which you can allude that only the two of you would understand? Giving each other a private smile at this heightened moment in the ceremony is priceless.
Make a list of reactive actions, meaning, “When you do this, I will do that;” “When you are tired, I will make you coffee; when you are down, I will cheer you up; when your team loses the World Series in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Seven on a walk-off grand slam by the other team’s worst hitter, I will not console you with the phrase, ‘There’s always next season.’ ”
Wedding vows are tough to write because they ought not to be too long. It’s difficult for two people to consolidate and express all the emotions and goals that have for each other. A lot of people are not comfortable writing, expressing, or even accessing their emotions. Wedding vows require the heavy lifting of thinking, as does the very decision to get married. Couples often have no idea how vows should even sound, so here is a thumbnail sketch of how they go:
Start with a toe-in-the water introduction. This could be one or two short, sweet things you say about your partner. It could be a memory from the early days of the relationship or a significant moment. This short introduction can establish the theme of your vows, it can allow you to express something in simple language, and it can help you get your nervous mouth working before launching into the vows. This is not the time for promises, it’s the time to say something beautiful. Doing this is much better than merely plunging into the vows.
Next: the actual vows.This can be a list, read as a list, one vow after another with no commentary. This can be a paragraph of phrasings as mentioned above (when you this, I will that) or explanations (because you always care for me, I will always take care of you). They can be a mixture of serious (I will comfort you when you are sick) and not-so-serious (I will always listen to you recap the phone call you just had even though I couldn’t help overhearing the entire thing because you were right next to me and frankly you did most of the talking). As long as you are stating promises with or without commentary, these will count as vows.
Listing only one or two vows does not feel substantial—three is the bare minimum, but more is better, within reason. While I have no scientific number to aim for, keep an eye on how long your vows take, and let that guide you. Your vows could all be really short, in which case they will take less time to say and thus you may incorporate more of them; they may be long and overarching, in which case you will need fewer of them.
Finally, wrap up with one last sweet, loving statement, ideally using the word LOVE.Things like, “I am the luckiest person in the world. I love you, and I can’t wait to call you my wife.”
That’s it. Keep it simple. Aim for sixty seconds. It will take you ninety seconds to two minutes, but aim for one minute. If you aim for two minutes, it will take three to four, and that’s too long.
I cannot state strongly enough how important it is to WRITE your vows. The worst, sloppiest, least effective vows I’ve witnessed were ones where the person made them up on the spot or worked from a general outline in their head. Big mistake. Both times I’ve seen this, the vow-improviser cried a lot, was incomprehensible, and probably left out a lot of things he could have said. The idea of “speaking from the heart” may appeal to you, but please take my advice that this is far too important to not think through and write down ahead of time.
When you read your vows, read them from an actual notebook or piece of paper. Do not use your phone—the ol’ tact-o-meter explodes when people try to read off their phone. There is a whole cottage industry for vow books. Get yourself something important and meaningful, and read the vows right off whatever you choose.
DO NOT TRY TO MEMORIZE THEM. This is not about showing off your memorization skills, and why risk forgetting to say something in the only time you really need to say it?
And here is my biggest tip for you: HAVE YOUR CELEBRANT HELP YOU. Whenever I help clients write their vows, I have them keep them a secret from each other, working with me on separate email chains. This way, each of them only hears the other’s vows during the actual wedding. And this way, I can be the arbiter of length and tone, advising them whether they need to add words or cut words. This way, both of your vows will ROCK. Feel free to reach out to me for vow consultations!