Marriage vows are serious business! Repeating your vows during your wedding ceremony is important because your’re making a verbal, eternal promise to stay committed to your spouse. Traditional vows that we’ve all heard and perhaps even said during our weddings go a little something like this:
“I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded(husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
Those are a solid foundation to build any marriage upon!
Many couples choose to write their own vows or personalize the traditional ones. Doing so gives you an opportunity to make a commitment that fits your unique relationship.
To celebrate our tenth year anniversary, my husband and I are planning to renew our vows and write them out ourselves. I want our renewal ceremony to reflect the truth about our marriage and the things we’ve learned over the years about what it takes to make our marriage work.
If I had to write them today, here’s an idea of what our vows would look like:
I, _____, still take you, ____________ as my lawfully wedded husband.
For the rest of my life, I promise to:
- Love you, no matter what.
- Say I’m sorry when I’m wrong or have hurt you.
- Pay attention to your physical and emotional needs.
- Be the best mother I can be to our child(ren).
- Do my part to keep us thriving financially.
- Grow with you and not apart from you.
- Take care of my health, so that I can be here with you as long as possible.
- Pray for you every day.
- Have fun with you and create beautiful memories.
- Always show you with my words and actions that I am yours alone, forever.
This list could go on and on if I let it, because quite honestly, to exist in a happy marriage takes daily effort to keep the promises you made at the altar. And even though I’m waiting until we renew in a formal ceremony on our tenth anniversary, the reality is that we live these vows out every single day. I don’t always get it right, but the effort is what matters most!
BMWK – Will you write your own vows at your wedding? Share some in the comments below!