Writing your vows
Wedding vow examples, and why they work
Examples are useful for shape, not for words. Read these for how they are built, then throw the sentences out and put your own in. A vow that sounds like someone else is worse than a plain one that sounds like you.
If you have not started yet, begin with our guide to writing your wedding vows, and if you are also speaking at the reception, see how to write a best man speech.
Once you have settled the wording questions, we will help you write the words themselves.
Write your vows freeShort and simple
Priya, I did not know that being loved well would feel this ordinary and this enormous at the same time. You make the small parts of my day better, and you have made the worst parts survivable. I promise to keep choosing you on the days it is easy and the days it is work. I promise to listen properly. I promise to come home to you, in every sense, for the rest of my life.
- Why this works
- about seventy words, one idea per sentence, and three promises a real person can actually keep. Short vows are the hardest to write and the easiest to deliver.
Sam, you are the person I want to tell everything to first. That is the whole thing, really. I promise to be honest with you even when it costs me something. I promise to be kind when we are tired. And I promise that whatever the next fifty years hold, you will not face any of it on your own.
- Why this works
- it makes one claim and defends it. You do not need a grand opening if the first line is true.
Traditional and formal
I, Daniel, take you, Grace, to be my wife. I promise to love you faithfully, in the years that are gentle and the years that are not, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want. I will honour you before others, keep you in my confidence, and stand beside you as long as we both shall live. This is my solemn vow.
- Why this works
- it borrows the cadence of traditional vows without copying any particular liturgy. The pairs of opposites give it rhythm. If your ceremony is religious, ask your officiant first, because some wording is fixed and not yours to change.
Funny, without losing the room
Marcus, you are the only person who has ever made me laugh so hard I had to pull the car over. You are also the person who alphabetised my spice rack without being asked, which I have decided to find romantic. I promise to keep your coffee strong and your schemes mostly unchallenged. I promise never to tell your mother about Lisbon. And underneath all of it, the serious part: I am yours, completely, for good.
- Why this works
- three jokes, then it lands. Funny vows fail when they are only funny. Earn the laugh early and finish sincerely, so the last thing the room hears is the true thing.
Modern and personal
Ari, we have not done any of this the traditional way. We moved in too fast, we adopted a dog before we owned a sofa, and we planned this entire day in a kitchen that still does not have a working light. I do not want the traditional way. I want ours. I promise to keep building it with you, badly lit and slightly chaotic and completely ours. I promise to grow in the same direction as you, and to tell you when I am not.
- Why this works
- nobody else on earth could say these sentences. That is the highest compliment a vow can earn.
How to use an example without sounding like one
- Take the shape and leave the sentences. Count the beats: how it opens, where the promises sit, how it ends.
- Swap every general phrase for something only you could say. "You supported me" becomes the actual week they supported you.
- Read your version out loud next to the example. If yours sounds more like you and less like writing, it is working.
- If a line is beautiful but you would never say it out loud, cut it.
Now 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.