How To Create Wedding Vows That Wow

While some couples are content with traditional vows selected and read by their rabbi, many others invest the time to create their own personal vows that wow beyond their wedding night. Here are a few tips:

Honor your traditions and heritage

First, get educated by researching and talking with your rabbi, family members, and close friends. Learn about traditions that have been honored for generations in your family and your community and choose which ones you would like to carry on.

List the top values that matter most to you and your fiancé. Then, think of ideas with these set of values at their foundation. Create pillars of your future life together by including some of your family traditions into your vows.

Ideas can be around Shabbat, holiday celebrations and gatherings, special trips to the western wall and other magical places in Israel, your own Passover Hagada, and even special recipes that can spice up your vows.

A wow vow could be along the lines of “I promise to partner with you to honor our Judaism by creating a peaceful Shabbat, meaningful holiday celebrations, and spiritual trips that we will share with the generations before us and the future generation we will create.”

Your written commitments will be stronger and more practical when you:

1. Link your past to the future and visions.
2. Think of your own traditions that you will want to start and declare. Once publicly declared, these promises become possibilities.
3. Surround yourself with a support system of family and friends that will hold you accountable to keeping these promises alive.

Dare to list all the “I will,” “I promise,” “I dream,” and “I declare”

Together, brainstorm and list all the promises, commitments, and experiences that make the two of you unique. Then, privately, choose the ones to highlight in your vows for your future together. Remember to include what made you last through bad times in your past and think years ahead about commitments that you are more likely to keep. To brainstorm ask yourself questions such as:

• What I love about you is…
• It makes me happy when you…
• You always move and inspire me when…
• When it gets hard, you help me by…
• In my ideal relationship the following promises exist…
• When it gets rough I can commit to the following…
• What I admire and respect the most about my partner is…
• What inspires me the most in other solid couples is…
• Fifty years from now I envision us doing…

Choose a style of writing that best fits you

Once you gather all the needed information, sort your ideas, organize them, and write from your heart in your preferred style (humorous, romantic, poetic). Write with fluency, make it fun, short, simple and profound, using:

• Bullet points
• Jokes and stories
• Short sentences
• Examples from your past that will make your audience laugh
• Promises that will be realistic, yet meaningful. Some can be broad and some can be specific.
• Write in an organized way and categorize the vows in a way that speaks to you
• Draft and revise until polished to perfection

For better and better

When writing your vows think for better and better. Write them in such a way that will help you solve your potential problems and propose a solution that would contain a possibility. For example, “when things go bad, let’s remain by each other’s side, lean on each other, and support each other.”

Your vows are an opportunity to create a future that is extraordinary.

Finish strong

Closing with impact will add a final wow to your vows. Ideas could be:

1. Pass on a souvenir that will help you both remember your vows. This is an ideal time for an item has been passed on for generations in your family, or purchase a new trinket and start a tradition that will be passed on for future generations.
2. Finish with a song because our brains are hard-wired to connect music with long-term memory. Make it one that you, your spouse, and everyone at your wedding will remember as only yours (so leave the latest pop hit for the dance floor and select something more unique here).
3. When you read it, give it your all don’t bottle up your emotions.

Whatever you decide to do please remember to have fun as you create the vows that will hold up your home and family. Contact us if you need some guidance creating your vows or the perfect wedding in which to recite them.