Your wedding vows are your chance to declare your love and make a commitment to your significant other. They’re even more powerful when you decide to write them yourself. Every word counts, so you need to give ample consideration to every single sentence.

Begin with the Declaration of Love

This is not your chance to launch into a long speech. Keep things simple and keep things profound. Here’s the basic rundown of the first part of your wedding vows.

• Begin with a simple sentence about who that person is to you. What do they mean?
• Choose a couple of traits that make them the most special person in the world.
• End it with a declaration of love.

To help you get an idea of what this means, we’re going to give you a little example below.

Amber, you are the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. You make me smile every single day and you are caring, dependable, and reliable. I have never been more in love with anyone in my life.

Make the Promises

Some people get so caught up in declaring their love that they forget the true meaning of the wedding vow. It’s a chance to vow something TO the other person. It’s about what you will do for your partner.

There are multiple ways you can do this. These are two of the top ideas for what to include in your promises.

• How will you show your love on a daily basis?
• How will you demonstrate your love through language?

Once you figure this out, you need to add some things to do with your partner. This can be a promise to create a peaceful family or to respect and encourage your dreams.

Now you’ve told your partner what you will do with them, make a basic promise to be there during the bad times as well as the good. Make sure you include something to do with time. Anything like ‘forever’ and ‘eternity’ works particularly well here.