How to write your wedding vows
Most people freeze at the blank page, not because they do not know how they feel, but because they have never had to say it out loud in front of everyone they know. Vows are not a writing test. They are a promise, said plainly, to one person.
For the wording questions around the day itself, see our wedding etiquette guide. For finished examples in four styles, see our wedding vow examples. If a friend is marrying you, share our wedding ceremony script for a friend officiating. If you are wondering about length, see how long wedding vows should be.
Once you have settled the wording questions, we will help you write the words themselves.
Write your vows freeStart with the raw material, not the writing
Before you write a single line, collect the moments. The day you knew. The unglamorous thing they do that you quietly love. The hardest year and what they did during it. The thing you tease them about. What you want an ordinary Tuesday to look like in ten years.
Write these as notes to yourself, ugly and specific. Specific is the whole game. "You are my best friend" is true of nearly every couple in the room. "You drove four hours to sit with me in a hospital car park" is true of exactly one.
A structure that works
Most vows that land follow roughly this shape:
- Who they are to you, in a line or two.
- The moment you knew.
- What you have been through together, briefly.
- The promises, three to five of them.
- One line about the life you are walking into.
How long vows should be
Ninety seconds to two minutes read aloud, which is roughly 200 to 300 words. Time yourself reading at the speed you will actually speak, which is slower than you think.
Long vows are not more loving. The room's attention is real, and so is your own composure. If you and your partner want to match, agree on a rough length in advance rather than swapping drafts.
Make the promises real
Skip promises nobody can keep. "I will never let you down" is a lovely sentence and an impossible one.
Promise things you can do on a bad Tuesday. I will keep asking about your day and actually listen to the answer. I will say the hard thing kindly instead of not saying it at all. I will make you laugh when you are furious with me, and I will know the moments not to try.
Concrete and slightly ordinary beats grand every time.
What to leave out
Inside jokes that only the two of you understand. One is charming. Three is a private conversation held in public.
Anything that would embarrass them, or their mother.
Ex-partners. Always.
Lines borrowed from films or songs that do not sound like your own mouth. If you quote at all, keep it to one line and make the rest yours.
Say them before you write them
Talk your vows before you type them. Say what you would say if the room were empty and it was just the two of you, and record it if that helps. Then tidy what you actually said.
Afterwards, read the draft out loud. Anything you stumble over gets cut or simplified. Your ear is a better editor than your eye.
Practice them properly
Read them aloud at least five times before the day, at least once standing up, and at least once to another person.
Print them on a card. Do not read from your phone: it dims, it lights up, and it is a phone in every photograph of the moment.
Expect to cry. Pause, breathe, keep going. Nobody in that room minds, and they will wait.
Ready to write yours?
Answer a few guided questions about the two of you and get a first draft in your own words, then edit it until it sounds exactly like you.