HELP!! Writing Wedding Vows and Such...

Don't forget the honor and OBEY part!

(BAHAWAHA!)

:)

I have nothing to offer.

Just wanted to say that I am sooooooo glad I don't have to do this!!!!!!

Best wishes, of course, R.! :)

I think you should talk to the judge or justice of the peace who is performing the ceremony, unless you haven't picked that person. They will have some standard templates you can use and be sure to include whatever is legally required in your state. You don't need to start completely from scratch.

You can personalize your vows in any way you want. My husband wrote some great things because he wanted to include his children in our ceremony - he wrote something about families being based on chemistry and not just biology, which he had the officiant read.

The 'who gives this woman' is optional - if you are being walked down the aisle by someone (a father, an uncle, even a mother nowadays), you can include that. But we did not include it in our ceremony, even though my parents were there, because I wasn't leaving their house - I'd been on my own for a long time. My folks were fine with that.

You can also include poems or music if you are having any sort of soloist, and you can choose your own processional and recessional if you are doing that.

You can also get a wedding etiquette book at any library that will have lots of suggestions.

I remember a book called the Humanists Wedding or something like that. It was a book about nice, but non-religious wedding ceremonies. Check the Internet, or call your local library!

Best wishes!

There is no right or wrong way to write a wedding ritual.

The way my husband and I did ours was
Cast a circle using an elemental blesssing poem a friend of mine had written
Offered divine light in the four cardinal directions
Read the vows we had written to each other and exchanged rings
Opened the circle
Feasted

Do it however it feels right to you to do it.

The man usually does vows first, not really sure why.

The meat and potatos are the vows, which is the terms of the contract outlining consideration, does anyone have any reason, which is the public acceptance of the contract, and the I know pronounce you man and wife, the contract is a done deal. Everything beyond that is bells and whistles.

So long as what is legally required is part of the ceremony you are good to go. I refuse to write vows, just not my thing.

& you may kiss the bride! LOL! I googled & came up with so many variations. Im using a marriage commissioner & the local site for commissioners have the legal vows they have to say & then you can talk to them about adding some of your own words. Do you have someone picked that is doing your vows? I know the lady thats doing mine is calling the week before to go over stuff like this. maybe talk to them & see what they usually do?

Updated

& you may kiss the bride! LOL! I googled & came up with so many variations. Im using a marriage commissioner & the local site for commissioners have the legal vows they have to say & then you can talk to them about adding some of your own words. Do you have someone picked that is doing your vows? I know the lady thats doing mine is calling the week before to go over stuff like this. maybe talk to them & see what they usually do?

One time I went to a wedding where the officiant was a "best friend." He said that he believed that the length and quality of the wedding was inversely related to the length and quality of the marriage! The ceremony was about 6 minutes long. And we got married in a traditional Jewish ceremony, which was still only about 15 minutes long.

This was generally our ceremony:
Walk down aisle
Greeting to those there
officiant gave a little speech about us as a couple
vows
rings

things that you could borrow from religious ceremonies but aren't really "religious" are the lighting of the unity candle (or the sharing of a unity cocktail!), breaking of a glass (like in a Jewish wedding), readings by friends or family (often from the bible, but could be a poem or something), a song. You could put any of those things whereever you wanted.

Congrats on your wedding!