Bringing a Little Humor to Your Wedding Day

To Have, and to hold, and… {fill in the blank.}

By Personalized Wedding Poet Chloe’ Yelena Miller
www.WordArrangement.WordPress.Com / www.WordArrangement.com

You’ve spent time planning the menu, flower arrangements, music, etc. Of course, the real reason for all of these details is that they help you and your guests celebrate your union with the person you love. Writing your own vows is the perfect way to personalize the ceremony and share your promises publicly.

There are many ways to approach your vows. Some religions and traditions offer you more flexibility than others; it is important that you create the tradition for yourselves, as new or familiar as that may be. You can write your vows together or share them for the first time during the ceremony.

Most vows incorporate the idea of standing by each other no matter what challenges you face (financial, medical or otherwise) and that your love will endure. For some examples of traditional and untraditional vows, here is a helpful website.

Your vows are pledges to your partner and your guests. If you decide to craft them privately, your conversations will probably be longer than the actual vows. You don’t have to include everything in your vows, but it can be beautiful to share your full thoughts with your partner.

The first step is to talk to your partner and decide if you are going to write them together or separately.
Here is a short list of some of the ideas to consider and expand on when writing your vows:
What is your favorite part of your relationship?
How did you meet?
How does your love inspire your life?
What does your partner offer you and what do you hope to offer the other person?
What is your definition of marriage?

The next step is to consider what aspects of your love, hopes, dreams, and maybe even fears, that you’d like to include.
Consider the following:
What is most important to you?
How does love nourish your life?
Where would you be without this love?

Poet Alli Shaloum-Brydon wrote her own vows and shared them in a guest blog post: the Adventures of Planning an Interfaith and Intercultural Wedding. I particularly love the last line, “Let us strive for excitement, adventure, and passion in everything we do.” That is exactly what we all hope for in life and in a partner.

Another idea is to speak with your celebrant. Most celebrants, like NJ based Celia Milton, help couples to build their own vows. I asked Celia to share some advice. She wrote, “I honestly think couples make this too hard, too terrifying by thinking their vows have to be great snippets of literature. That’s really not it at all; their vows are their promises to each other; the promises that they have made in their hearts long before their wedding day.”

Be reminded that your vows don’t only take place on one day. They are promises that carry into the future. We are reminded of that by Philadelphia area Wedding Priestess Ann Keeler Evans . She writes in her blog, “What if you crafted your vows as the working document that will carry your relationship into the future?”

If you are looking for additional help, you are welcome to contact Chloe‘, she writes personalized wedding poems which can be tailored to be read as vows.