In our Pastor meeting on the 16th, Church Pastor insisted that we use the "traditional" vows. INSISTED! Um, nope. I can't get married to these:
"I, (name), take you (name), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part." source
I told him that was going to be a problem because I wouldn't recite vows that I find cliche. I totally believe that those vows are valid and a great base for a marriage. However, they are the ones always seen in Hollywood films, and made fun of in jokes. Both Fiance and I want something meaningful to ourselves and each other. But, we did not want the write them ourselves.
This book: The Knot Guide To Wedding Vows and Traditions is amazing! If you have not yet decided what you want your vows to be, pick up a copy of this book. It is full of readings, toasts, vows--and their traditions/origins--religious and secular. I loved looking through it!
Anywho, we picked out and altered 2 (very different) sets of vows to fit our tastes:
"I ________, take you _________, to be my wife/husband, and these things I promise you: I will be faithful to you and honest with you; I will forgive you as we have been forgiven; I will love, respect, trust, help, and care for you; through trials and triumphs, I will share my life with you from this day forward, according to God’s Holy Ordinance."
"I take you to be my wife/husband, my friend, my love, my lifelong companion: to share my life with yours. To build our dreams together, while allowing you to grow with your dreams; to support you through times of trouble, and rejoice with you in times of happiness; to treat you with respect, love, and loyalty through all the trials and triumphs of our lives together; and to give you all the love I can give my whole life long. This commitment is made in love, kept in faith, lived in hope, and eternally made new."
We didn't really LOVE the first set, but knew church Pastor would be more willing to work with us on it. We really like the second set, but were pretty confident he'd say no. Then I 'Googled' "wedding vows," came up with these, tagged on the last line, and voila! Hopefully, our vows.
"I, (name), take you, (name), to be my [opt: lawfully wedded] (husband/wife), my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live. This commitment is made in love, kept in faith, lived in hope, and eternally made new."
J really likes this set and we both think church Pastor will OK these. We just e-mailed him, so hopefully we'll get a response soon!
What are you going to do for your vows? If already married, what vows did you use? Why?
If you wrote your own, I would LOVE to read them. Actually, all of you: e-mail your vows to me and I'll compile them all into a post.
nauticalwedding at gmail dot com
4 comments:
I used the traditional vows only because I found something terribly romantic about reciting the same words that people have been getting married to over hundreds of years...
Just my thoughts!
-E
We wrote our ceremony with the help of the Wedding Ceremony Planner. I highly recommend that book.
Here's our entire ceremony: http://sillylittlemischief.blogspot.com/2008/07/recap-ceremony.html
The book also included more religious vows than the ones we used.
I agree with prepe girl - we used traditional vows too. But, we basically made our own ceremony bc we werent doing it in a church and had that flexibility, so we added some of our own extra elements. But the vows we wanted to be traditional with.
Hi lady, I fully intend to email you our vows, but wanted to put my two cents in if I happen to forget! Reading your 2nd compiled set, I can understand where you are comings from and the tone you want to convey. That being said, I'd like to just put it out there to really take the length into consideration. We put our vows together as well, and while I did feel as I read through them that they were long, we never said them out loud until the ceremony and let me tell you, they dragged on and on and on!
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