Write and Recite Your Own Wedding Vows

A special and joyous touch to any wedding is when the bride and groom write original wedding vows. If the minister or priest will allow them, they can really personalize a wedding.

Writing wedding vows is not a difficult as it may seem. Below are some ideas for how to write beautiful, original love vows.

What Do You Know?

The first thing the couple needs is some quiet time, a couple hours where they can get together and talk about their relationship and their future. Set aside some time to piece together some notes for the wedding vows.

A good way to collect ideas is to answer the following questions. Each person should write their own answers to collect some notes on which to base the completed vows.

1. How and where did you first meet?
2. What was your dating/engagement journey like?
3. Why do you love your future spouse?
4. What have you learned about life from your future spouse?
5. What do you wish to bring to the marriage?
6. What do you wish to receive from the marriage?
7. What do you hope your marriage will be based on?
8. What do you promise your future spouse?
9. Where do you see yourselves in 50 years?
10. For what do you want to thank your future spouse?

Now, after each of you have answered these questions, go through your answers and highlight phrases or sentences you definitely want to include in the vows. You don’t have to use all the material you’ve collected; in fact, it’s better to pick and choose from the ideas.

Organize the Words

The vows should be anywhere from a minute to two minutes in length. You could allow for a minute per person. A minute of oral speech is around 170 words in length. So plan on writing around 340-350 words.

Chronologically

To organize the vows, you can start chronologically from the time you first met to now. Divide up the narrative between the couple, taking turns to tell your “relationship story.”

It could go something like this: (Woman) “From our first date at Applebee’s, I knew you were the one for me. I remember that night after the date, I went home and told my mother that I’ve meet the man I’m going to marry. (Man) And after a long three-year courtship full of laughter and mutual discovery, here we are ready to be married.”

A good way to continue this kind of vow structure is to tell your family and friends what you promise to each other and/or on what you hope your marriage will be based.

What you bring, what you wantAnother possible structure is to concentrate on questions #5 and #6. Start out by stating what each person brings to the future marriage. Then, switch to what you both hope to receive from this matrimony. You might end these vows with the answers to question #9: where you see yourselves in 50 years.

Play around with the material, knowing that basic vows can address the quality of the existing relationship and how the relationship is to be formulated in the future. In your vows, you’re promising your spouse how it will be when you’re married.

A little bit traditional

A good model for your own vows is the traditional wedding vows. Let’s look at what they say. (These vows were found at weddings.about.com. They have been edited to make them more concise.)

I, (name), take you, (name), to be my (husband/wife), 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, 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.

If you notice, God is mentioned in these vows. It will be your choice as to whether or not you mention God or religion depending on your beliefs.

So, you can model your vows after the traditional vows if you wish. Or, an alternative way to go about writing the vows is not to start from collecting notes, but to start with an outline of exactly what you want the words to convey, and then build up the ideas from there. Some people work better from notes; and others, from an outline. Up to you.

A quote of love

Now, here’s a completely different approach. It’s based on famous love quotes. Often a famous quote at the beginning of the vows will propel the complete vows forward to a logical ending.

Let’s look at an example. Here’s a famous love quote: According to Amy Carmichael, “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”

From this, the vows might proceed to “Beloved _____, in our marriage I promise to give you unconditional love, my entire intellect, my whole body, my being.”

“Beloved ____, in our marriage I promise to cherish you and learn from you and respect your individuality. You will be my best friend and my one true love.”

The vows could then talk about the couple’s mutual goals for their marriage.

“Beloved ____, in our marriage, with God’s help, let us raise a family and help to build a peaceful world in which to coexist with our children and our neighbor’s children.”

“Beloved ____, in our marriage, let us learn to be more human by studying Jesus’ example.”

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

See how it’s done?

It’s really a matter of zeroing in on what you want to mention and then putting it into some kind of logical order.

Here’s another quote from which to start a speech: According to Willa Cather, “Where there is great love, there is always miracles.”

From this quote, the vows might proceed to “____, you are my miracle. Every day, you teach me to be a better person by your wonderful example.”

And then to “____, you are my miracle. Every moment, you teach me how to abide in joy.”

“____, I promise…”

“____, I promise…”

“Together we dedicate ourselves to each other. ___, I take you to be my husband.”

“___, I take you to be my wife.”

“With God’s grace, let us walk forward into our future together.”

“Amen.”

Below are some more famous love quotes with which to begin vows:

Francoise Sagan said, “Loving is not just caring deeply; it’s, above all, understanding.”

According to Annie Sullivan, “Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out. You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything.”

Sophocles said, “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.”

An unknown author once said, “You don’t marry someone you can live with; you marry the person who you cannot live without.”

And don’t forget the ever popular, 1 Corinthians 13:4 quotation: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

So again, using a quotation to start wedding vows often makes good sense, especially if you have a favorite quote about love. It might be useful to invest in a book of quotes.

Practice Makes Perfect

After you’ve written your wedding vows. Read them aloud in front of an audience you trust and get feedback. Do the necessary editing and trimming to get them to the proper number of words.

And when you recite your vows to each other on your big day, I suggest using a microphone if one is available. If there is no audio system in the church, be sure to speak loudly, clearly and fairly slowly so everyone can comprehend what you’re saying. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

You may choose to read your vows to each other from the paper or note cards on which they’re written or memorize the vows and recite them while looking into each other’s eyes. I prefer the second method.

In conclusion, writing your own vows is a wonderful expression of your mutual love. And hey, if you still, after reading this, have no idea on how to go about this process, immerse yourself in wedding vows of all kinds. A variety of wedding vows can be found on the Internet. A good site to view many vows from around the world is 1weddingsource.com.

Good luck to you. I’m sure you’ll produce something beautiful, honest and lasting with which to anchor as well as inspire.

How To Become A Wedding Speechwriter

Everyone loves a wedding. Weddings bring people together, not only a husband and a wife, but also family and friends. And what better topic to write about than love?

Being a wedding speechwriter is not hard if you have basic speechwriting skills and a good concept of true, eternal love, as it is displayed between the couple at their wedding and, most importantly, after the wedding.

After writing several speeches for more than a year for instantweddingtoasts.com, I can offer the following tips for becoming a successful wedding speechwriter (or you can take the suggestions to write your own friendly speech for the next toast you’re about to give):

Being married helps

It is useful to be married. This is because in the speeches one talks about aspects of marriage. For instance, sometimes, I included a section on marriage manners such as the infamous “don’t go to bed angry” and “learn to say please and thank you at the dinner table.” Granted, this kind of information is common sense, but it comes more easily to someone who’s married.

It also helps to be married in the sense of knowing what it’s like to stand up in front of a crowd and say your vows and then go through a reception, where your friends and family are honoring you. As a married person, you know the kinds of information you want to hear in a speech and the kind you don’t want to hear. For instance, no bride wants to hear about her groom’s ex-girlfriends, and no groom wants to hear how hard it was for the bride to decide to marry him.

Possess a vivid imagination

It also helps to be able to think out of the box. For instance, I wrote Father of the Bride speeches. I had to put myself in the father’s shoes and imagine what he (an “older” gentleman) would want to say to his daughter on her wedding day. The same was true for Best Man speeches. Obviously, I’m a woman, so when I wrote for best men, I had to think like a man. This involved telling stories about the Groom and the Best Man and explaining how their friendship was special. In short, getting beyond your own gender and age is necessary in writing wedding speeches. The speechwriter must be able to cross all lines be they gender, age, religion, sexuality or nationality lines.

Think before you act

One should have good judgment. This is because people who commission you often have questionable requests. For instance, I had one Best Man who wanted me to try to demoralize the bride because he didn’t like her. Now, obviously, a wedding speechwriter should never demoralize the bride. The bride is the person who is being honored. It’s in instances like this that the writer needs to have good judgment. Pleasing the customer is not always the right thing to do. Sometimes, you have to say no to unreasonable requests.

Have an understanding of religion

One should be able to at least “do” religion. Most of the speeches I wrote were for Christian weddings. Although I had a few weddings in which the speakers, mostly fathers, didn’t want any mention of religion, almost all the wedding participants wanted religion and God to be a part of the speech text. If someone requests that a speech have a religious flavor, then the vocabulary of religion as well as specific prayers might be included. If you’re an atheist or an agnostic and can’t tolerate a God-filled world, then wedding speech writing probably isn’t for you.

Invest in good tools

One should be able to buy or at least get one’s hands on the following: a book of love and marriage quotations by famous individuals, a book of love and marriage jokes, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a good book on organizing and writing wedding speeches. A few of the books on wedding speeches are “Wedding Speeches & Toasts,” by Cassell Illustrated, 2006, and “Wedding Speeches and Toasts: Your Indispensable Guide to Writing and Giving the Perfect Wedding Speech,” by Angela Lansbury, reprint, 2002. And the most recent title I found was “Wedding Toasts & Speeches: Finding the Perfect Words,” by Jo Packham, 2nd edition, Feb. 2007. And there are many more. Take a look on amazon.com. You’ll be amazed at how many resources you can find easily.

Be flexible

One should be able to write or incorporate light comedy as well as deep, sentiment because different people want different things. You, as the speechwriter, should ask the customer what kind of tone he or she wants to the speech before you write it.

Use an informational questionnaire

Moreover, the speechwriter should create a questionnaire that she/he has the customer fill out before the speech is written. In the questionnaire, you should ask the customer basic information such as name, address and occupation and then ask him/her to give you stories or memories about the Bride or the Groom. You see, in this questionnaire, you’re basically trying to find out what material the customer wants in the speech. There is usually some information needed about how the Groom and Bride met. Also in the questionnaire, you can ask the customer to include any text he definitely wants in the speech — a prayer, a quote, a joke, or something that the speaker wrote him/herself.

Something to pay attention to is how the customer words things in the questionnaire. Does he/she use “big” words? Does he/she use slang? From analyzing the voice in the questionnaire, the speechwriter can create the appropriate voice for the speaker. In other words, watch putting inappropriate words in the speaker’s mouth. If the speaker doesn’t write like he/she’s been to college, don’t give him/her an “academic” voice.

Consult With The Client While Drafting Speech

Now, with this questionnaire and the customer’s phone number handy, the speechwriter can draft the speech. You’ll need the phone number because you’ll probably have questions for the customer. You might want him/her to give you more details on a particular subject or to verify a name or locale.

Use good, consistent organization

The Father of the Bride, the Best Man and the Maid of Honor speeches are the ones I wrote the most. These are the most typical. For these three speeches, the organization is pretty much the same:

a. First, the speaker introduces him/herself and thanks everyone for coming. He or she may say a few general words about “this occasion of love.” This beginning section is mainly to convey how happy the speaker is to be standing there and how wonderful the day is.

b. Next, might come details about how the speaker knows the Bride and/or Groom, how the Bride and Groom met, how long they’ve been together.

c. Then, might come personal stories about the Bride or the Groom. These might be childhood stories or memories.

d. Finally, you might conclude with advice for the Bride and Groom or good wishes for their happiness.

e. In conclusion, end the speech with a little toast, something like this:

May you never grow tired of one another.
May your love deepen throughout the years.
May God bring you brilliant and adoring children;
and may you always remember to be
thankful for the other’s love
each and every day.
(raise glass) To Bill and Cathy!

Keep track of speech length

The speechwriter should, of course, keep track of how long a speech is. Most of my wedding speeches didn’t go over five minutes. And on the average, they were about 500-600 words in length.

Price the speeches fairly

And what about pricing the wedding speeches? I would say that a fair price for a beginning speechwriter would be anywhere between $25.00 to $50.00/speech.

Do your homework

Wedding speechwriters should never miss a wedding. Go to them all, and take notes on the speakers. Maybe, you’ll learn a new phrase, joke or love story to add to a speech.

Consider coaching your clients

In my Internet position, I simply wrote the speeches. But if you become a local wedding speechwriter, and you have some public speaking knowledge, you might also offer to coach the speaker with the speech before the wedding. This isn’t necessary, but it’s surely a nice service to offer if you’re experienced in it. Some of the concepts you can stress with the speaker are volume control, speed of speech, eye contact, nonverbal communication and general demeanor.

Use impeccable writing

Most importantly, the speeches you write are meant to be read aloud. Be sure to read the speeches to yourself after you compose them to see how they sound. Eliminate extra words and watch needless repetition. Try to eliminate inappropriate slang. And be sure the grammar is perfect. Watch subject/verb agreement and improper pronoun usage. If you don’t know grammar well, I would say that you’re going to have an awfully hard time as a speechwriter. First things first; if you really have your heart set on being a wedding speechwriter, and you don’t know grammar, take a grammar class, and learn the rules. It can be done. Then, become a speechwriter.

Be Aware of the Gravity of Your Role

In conclusion, again, a wedding speechwriter has to have good, basic speechwriting skills, but he/she must have, at base, a deep belief in the convention of marriage. The speeches you create will be spiritual in nature, sacred. They’ll be treasured for years to come. Writing wedding speeches is a real honor and a service. People are placing their complete trust in you to make them look and sound good. This vocation is not to be entered into lightly. It’s serious business. A speech can make or break a wedding. Good judgment and good wishes are very important.

Sample Speech-Father of the Bride (488 words)

Good evening everyone. I want to welcome you all to the wedding reception of Lisa and John. Thank you so much for coming, and I want to say a big thank you to those of you who traveled down to South Carolina to be with us. (Look at crowd) I must say, you’re a great looking group. I suggest that you sit back and have another glass of cheer. It’s going to be a fun night. Welcome, all.

I can’t express how thrilled I am that Lisa has finally found her prince. My new son-in-law, John, is a Lutheran minister. I bet he’ll keep my little girl in line. Lisa’s mother and I are so happy that these two wonderful people found each other. We want to thank Lisa’s cousin Mike O’Donnell for introducing them. What a great couple they are — smart, educated, healthy and beautiful. But most importantly, these are two very kind souls. John works with the homeless in his ministry, and Lisa treats and counsels battered women. More power to you both.

Lisa, you will always be my little sweetheart. I remember how lovely you were as a child, a little ballerina with a silver crown and a beautiful white tutu. You have always made me very proud. We were not surprised when you were admitted to medical school early. Then, your studies took you to Yale. After this, you traveled the world, going to China, the Netherlands and Australia, just to name a few places. I just want you to know that I love and admire you. You are my hero.

Honey, you’ve made a wonderful life for yourself in South Carolina. You have a booming gynecology practice. You have your own lovely home, and now you have someone to share it with. I have to say, you’re two lucky people to have each other.

Your grandparents on both sides would be so happy to see you tonight. I’m sure you have made them very proud.

Now, just a little advice before we drink a toast to you. Forever is a long time; don’t panic. Take one day at a time. Everything you need to know will be revealed to you as you go along. Try to make the other happy. Remember the little things such as cleaning up after yourself. Tell each other you love them each and every day. There will be people along the way who will assist you in your journey. Don’t forget to say thank you.
And so, without further ado, let us raise a glass and toast Lisa and John:

May your home be a happy and peaceful one.
May God bless you with children who love you.
May you delight in knowing that you’re each other’s favorite person.
May God make many miracles in your lives
and may you always be grateful for what Our Lord has given you.
To Lisa and John!

This article first appeared in longer form for Toastmasters. (c) 2008 Toastmasters International