Writing your own wedding vows.
Words Charlene Fernandez-Bobis
What’s in Your Bouquet? The most important and basic component: your promise for the marriage. Your “flowers” should be:
Peonies for promises Key 1: Nothing in Excess
• Don’t make extravagant promises
• Leave the thesaurus alone
• Never go over one minute.
• Try not to repeat the word “love” too many times, or it will lose its meaning.
Rosemary for remembrance Key 2: The most basic
Ideas to include
• Eternal love
• Respect and honor
• Faithfulness and loyalty
Daisies for simplicity Key 3: Keep it simple
• Don’t go over 100 words
• Don’t make your vows last more than one minute
• Don’t rehash your entire love story
• It’s a promise, so the simpler the promise, the harder it is to break.
Gather all your rosebuds
• Have a special “bouquet holder.”
• Have a small notebook you can carry around and write in when inspiration strikes.
• Don’t like to write? Use your cellphone’s recorder.
• Get ideas; do your research. You can refer to vows made by others, or find templates you can customize to your sentiments.
Spinning Dreams: Creating the Word Bouquet
• Just write it! Once you’ve got material from the suggestions in the flower patch, and added your own ideas, start writing your vows.
• Don’t censor yourself.
• Never mind if it’s a mess.
• Even if it reaches more than a page, keep going.
Finding Your Flowers
Drafting and Revising: Remember the basics: it’s a
promise of love made before witnesses. Now weed your draft by checking each line : • Is it sincere?
• Is it an essential promise without which this marriage would suffer?
• Does it reflect who you are and what your relationship is?
• Does it promise one of the following: eternal love,
respect and honor, and/or faithfulness and loyalty?
Adding Non-Florals and Accessories
• A few tips to make your task easier:
• Know your voice. Choose a ‘voice’ that reflects you as a person, and is an appropriate vehicle for conveying your heartfelt promises.
• Don’t think you can write your vows on the back of a receipt five minutes before the ceremony.
• Take your time. Start a month before the big day, and work on it for a few minutes every day.
• Feel free to ask others for advice.
Viewing Your Arrangement: Practice and Revise!
• Read them out loud to someone you trust, ideally a writer.
• Pay attention to your enunciation. Record yourself if necessary. • Why not have a lovely printout on the day itself?
• Brides can carry their vows in a tiny scroll in their bouquets; grooms can have a small scroll or a nicely printed card in their pockets
• Play music in the background.
As seen in Wedding Essentials Volume 10 Issue 1
