In brief: how do you write your wedding vows?
Good vows run to a minute or two and combine a personal story, a sincere promise and a touch of humour. You don’t need to be a writer: start from a framework and shape it to your own personality. This article sets out five approaches, with example texts to adapt however you like.
- Traditional: the classic vows, reworked in your own words (template in the article).
- Structured: a solid plan — how you met, what they changed in you, what you promise.
- Romantic: vows in verse.
- Playful: a speech built around your dates and the numbers behind your story.
- Shy: vows recorded on video in advance and played on the day.
Exchanging vows is as symbolic a moment as it is a dreaded one. It lets you honour the person you love and say exactly what you feel — and at the same time it pushes you well outside your comfort zone. Will you keep your composure, get past the nerves, and own your words in front of that many people?
And above all: how do you write the speech that will floor your other half and everyone in the room?
At moments like this, you’d love to be one of those people who write easily, who find that perfect balance of humour and feeling with no apparent effort.
But the only text longer than three lines you’ve written in the past two years was the letter cancelling your phone contract — and even that was lifted wholesale from a template.
So while a wedding speech is obviously meant to be unique and personal, there’s nothing to stop you getting a bit of help with the writing and adapting it to your own personality. There’s no harm in it. As the song goes, all you need is love — but a bit of inspiration doesn’t hurt either.
1. Want something classic? Go for traditional wedding vows
Classic doesn’t have to mean dull. You can work from a framework and add your own stamp, adjusting a ready-made text with a bit of care. You can even work in some humour.
(The text below came straight out of our own heads. You’re very welcome to it.)
“I, (…), take you, (…), to be my husband/wife. I promise to love you, to cherish you and to respect you, for the whole of our lives, for richer and for poorer. I promise to support you, in good times and in bad, to be your rock, and to have you as the one thing I couldn’t do without.
Today, in front of our friends and our family, I promise to celebrate our marriage every day as though it were the first.
I loved you, I love you, and I will love you…” (we may be traditional, but a line borrowed from a love song never hurt anyone)
2. Organised? Build a plan for a speech that holds together
When you don’t know where to start, and you can’t work out how to arrange your ideas, the trick is to set out a framework: follow a plan, and it will let you develop what you want to say in the right order. No harder than a school essay, really.
And happily, your other half should be rather more inspiring than an exam question on Descartes.
- You can follow the thread of the relationship, for example:
– How we met
– How our feelings and our relationship grew
– Where we are now
– How we see the future, together
(Again, the text below is entirely our own invention. If you borrow from it, do remember to change the dates and the names, or it could get awkward.)
“It’s 15 March 2018. The weather is filthy, the trains have been a nightmare and I’m late to that party at Sam’s. In short, it isn’t going well. I walk into a flat I know inside out, with no idea that my life is about to change.
And then I catch sight of you.
You’re laughing. I think you’re radiant, and beautiful. I try my luck, which was far from a certainty, and somehow I come away with a date the following week. How lucky I was to have made you laugh that day.
So we see each other again. And then it snowballs. I want to be with you all the time. All the time. I love everything about you: your strength, your determination, your generosity, the way you enjoy life. We’re inseparable; we live, we dream, we travel together.
Life is good with you. It doesn’t take me long to make up my mind — it’s obvious. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
Today, I’m standing in front of you and everyone we love. There’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be, and you’ve made me the happiest man alive by making room for me at your side.
I can’t wait for the future with you, to grow old with you, to count our grey hairs together. I can’t wait to watch our children grow up, and our grandchildren. I can’t wait for all of this life with you.
Let’s not waste any time. Let’s be happy together. I love you.”
- Another approach: ask yourself a few questions and, by answering them simply, you’ll find it fairly easy to build a speech that sounds like you and reflects what you actually feel:
– What did you feel when you met your other half?
– How do you feel when you’re with them?
– Why did you take the plunge and decide to marry?
– How do you picture the two of you in 10 or 15 years’ time?
3. Romantic? Write your speech in verse
If you feel a poet stirring somewhere inside you, you can surprise the room with a poem, or even a spoken-word piece.
You don’t need to channel Shakespeare, and you certainly don’t need to overdo it: being yourself is, once again, rule number one for wedding vows that land — verse or no verse.
You might also think of a line or a quotation to open each stanza, something that sums up your story and gives the whole thing a rhythm.
And for the less inspired, the great poets have said it rather well already:
How Do I Love Thee?, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”
4. Good with numbers? Build a speech out of dates and figures
If you’re an accountant, or you simply have a head for dates, numbers make a fine backbone for a speech that mixes feeling and humour rather neatly:
(Again, the text below came out of our own overactive imaginations. If you borrow from it, do change the figures and the names so they fit your story — that goes without saying.)
“Tom,
You know I’ve always loved numbers. So today I’ve decided to share a few with you — the ones that, to my mind, sum up our story best:
3,281: the number of days we’ve already spent together.
32: the number of glances I threw your way before I dared come and talk to you.
10: the number of messages we send each other every day, to check the other one’s day is going well, and to fill the gap we feel when we’re apart, even for a few hours.
116: the number of arguments about whose turn it is to do the washing-up.
10,814: the number of times I’ve thought how handsome you are.
2,600: the number of your terrible jokes I’ve laughed at, usually against my better judgement.
89: the number of times I’ve woken you in the night to go and check there was nobody in the house.
And then a date, among others: that 6 March 2021, the day you asked me to spend the rest of my life with you. And finally 327: the number of times I’ve thought how glad I am that I said yes.
Today, on this 8 May 2022, I’m saying it once, in front of witnesses: I love you, and I will for the tens of thousands of days we’re going to spend together.”
5. Shy? Record your vows in advance
A wedding speech is a lovely thing, but there’s no need to make yourself ill for weeks beforehand because you’re dreading speaking up — even in front of family and friends. There’s a great deal to manage on the day, and it should stay enjoyable for you.
Several options let you avoid disappointing your partner without having to stammer your way through it in public:
- Record your speech in advance and play it as your other half arrives at the ceremony.
- Do it Love Actually-style, declaring your love on a stack of cards held up one by one in front of your guests.
And all of it set to music, to add to a moment that will, we’re quite sure, stay with everybody there.