Writing perfect, personalized wedding vows

Erik & Tiffany Kallhovd said perfect vows (photo credit: Jennifer Sieveking)

By guest blogger Sharon Naylor

Your wedding vows are what the entire day is about! You’re promising to love, honor, cherish, support and be faithful to each other, joining your lives together for all time. At that wonderful, emotional part of the ceremony, the two of you say the most meaningful words possible in any relationship. So they have to be good.

For a long time, brides and grooms just recited the traditional wedding vows, the love, honor, cherish, forsaking all others script that everyone knows so well. Recently, obey was kicked to the curb. And that opened a door for personalizing wedding vows. Couples started to write their own promises, insert their own emotional sentiments and even make everyone laugh.

At my April 2008 wedding (wow, has it been that long? Feels like yesterday!), my husband added a line to his vows that cracked everyone up. After the emotional part of his vows, in which he said it was his honor that I hold him in such high esteem (sigh), he added a reference to VH1s "Rock of Love" with the signature line of “Will you stay with me and rock my world?” that Bret Michaels uttered on his racy dating show. Our guests laughed, I laughed through my tears and it was a priceless moment. Dated, yes, but it was perfect in the moment.

So if Bret Michaels can be quoted at my wedding, that’s a definite sign that vows are getting really creative. So I wrote a book about it. "Your Special Wedding Vows" is my guide to personalizing your wedding vows using classic quotes, humor, song lyrics and many other inspirations that reflect your relationship.

And that’s the whole key. Your vows will be more meaningful and more memorable if they reflect your relationship. Sounds like a monumental task, right? Your love for your partner is probably so deep and so multi-faceted that you could never put it into words. Or you feel like you could talk forever about how happy you are together.

I’m going to help you mine the gems of your relationship to write the perfect, personal wedding vows right here. Jot down the answers to the following questions:

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