20 Tips if You’re Struggling With Your Wedding Vows

Writing down your wedding vows can be a bittersweet experience. It’s a beautiful moment to share words that express your love and commitment and the journey you’re about to embark on with your partner. But the pressure for perfection makes it nerve-wracking, too. If you’re finding it hard to turn your feelings into words, these are 20 tips to guide you through.

1. Start Early

Whether you were looking at men’s or women’s engagement rings earlier in the relationship, you probably took your time finding the right one. The same tactic applies to writing your vows.

2. Reflect on Your Relationship

Every love story is defined by specific moments. Which memories with your partner are your favourites? When was the moment you knew you were in love or wanted to spend the rest of your life with your partner?

3. Make a List

Build your vows upon a solid and honest foundation. What promises do you want to make? List the qualities about your partner that you cherish.

4. Keep It Personal

The best wedding vows are unique to the love story being celebrated that day. You might feel pressured to have traditional-sounding vows, but speaking from your heart is what will register best.

5. Avoid Overused Phrases

Your earliest drafts might have you telling your partner you love them to the moon and back. It’s a sweet sentiment, but your later drafts need to be more original in expressing your devotion.

6. Consider Your Future Together

Vows aren’t just about the present; they should also reflect the future. What kind of spouse do you promise to be?

Vows are said when putting the ring on, so you don’t want it too long.

7. Keep It Concise

If you can’t state your vows in less than two minutes, you need to trim the content. A single minute is even better. Something short and meaningful has more power. You might have a million things to say to convey your love, but you’ve got a lifetime ahead of you to do it.

8. Add a Touch of Humour

Just a bit of light-heartedness can add flavour to your vows. They’ll feel genuine and natural, and it’s a great way to break some of the inevitable tension you both feel on one of life’s biggest days.

9. Read Examples for Inspiration

Put together a pile of previous wedding vows on flashcards, then sort them into piles of what you like and don’t like. You’ll start sparking ideas and find your unique voice.

10. Speak About Overcoming Challenges

Every relationship has its difficulties, but that’s not something you have to ignore in a happy moment. Acknowledge the mountains the two of you have climbed together in your journey, and savour the growth it brought you both.

11. Use Meaningful Quotes

Not everyone is a poet or lyricist. If you find a quote that perfectly summarizes your feelings, feel free to incorporate it. Just be sure it resonates with your personal journey and helps you say what you truly feel.

12. Reaffirm Your Love

Sometimes, the first few words of your vows can be the hardest to write. Start with “I love you.” Many people getting married shy away from these three words because they seem too obvious, but they’re honest and true and hold tremendous weight.

13. Promise Something Tangible

“Forever” is a common promise in wedding vows, and it might be worth including. However, specific promises are concrete commitments. Tell your partner you’ll always laugh at their jokes or support their dreams.

14. Practice Out Loud

Whether it’s your first draft or your tenth, read your vows out loud. This will help confirm the flow of the words and make them sound natural.

15. Write in Your Voice

Know your voice and how you usually speak. If being overly poetic isn’t your routine speaking style, don’t write your vows that way. You might draft your words on paper many times in writing, but you’ll be delivering them as spoken lines only once. Be yourself.

16. Avoid Overcomplicating Things

Simplicity empowers sincerity. Say what you mean without overthinking it.

17. Think About Wedding Planning Stress

Mention how you and your partner have supported each other during stressful times, whether it was a personal crisis one of you faced or just the rigors of planning your wedding together.

18. Tie in Your Rings

Your vows might be the moment you’re switching from affordable engagement rings to wedding rings. Just like your vows, the rings you wear symbolize your love, so mentioning hand-crafted, high-quality rings as representations of your commitment can add a tangible touch to your profession of love.

19. Remember, Love Has No Price

There’s a standard societal pressure to spend a fortune on everything wedding-related. However, you can’t measure true love in dollars. Let your vows reflect how much more you value your partnership than material things.

20. Finish Strong

How you close your vows might be the part everyone remembers best. Make a final promise, choose a heartfelt statement, or pick a meaningful inside joke from your relationship.

Making It Meaningful

You should have many chances to express your love with words, but wedding vows are a singular opportunity you and your partner will remember for many years. Your preparation for this moment could have involved dozens of drafts of potential vows and looking over many different women’s and men’s wedding bands, but remember one thing above all else: It’s the love you share that you treasure the most because love has no price.