Ceremony vows? Letters to each other? i do's?

I think it depends on the type of wedding you're having. You should talk to your officiant to determine the structure of your wedding and what you can do to change it/make it your own.

We had what our officiant called "The Declaration of Intent" which was the "do you take Bride/Groom to be your lawfully wedded wife/husband?" and the "Vows" which were our promises to each other. I think technically they could have been considered letters to each other. Our "Reading" was from the Bible and my Uncle/Godfather read it.

We are writing our own vows, in addition to letters just to each other that we will read privately the day of. The letters are totally optional, but gives you a way to say things to each other that you may not want to say in front of everyone, or if you have too much to say to fit into your vows. Your vows shouldn't be more than 1-2 minutes long for the average ceremony. You can do the traditional vows (in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, etc.) in addition to or instead of writing your own vows. Your officiant should be able to help you put together the order of the ceremony.

For a wedding ceremony to be official it requires two components; the declaration of intent (the I do’s) and the pronouncement (where your officiant announces you as married, given their officiating power).

Past that, much of the ceremony is optional; whether you read love letters or make promises in the form of vows is up to you. You can recite traditional vows and compliment them with a love letter or you can write your own vows and promises to each other. It’s a good idea to talk with you officiant (and your future spouse) about the flow of your ceremony and what elements you’d like to include.

My FH and I will be writing our own vows and having them focus on promises to each other - with statements of how much we love each other thrown in there too

My officiant has asked us to write love letters to each other detailing what we love about the other person. She then weaves them into our vows. We will also be doing the traditional vows as well.

We wrote our ceremony. We did Google searches of wedding ceremonies and put together parts of all different ceremonies. Like a puzzle. It's really good and I cry everytime I read it. When we chose our officiant we sent to her what we wrote and she just cleaned it up and made it pretty lol. As long as it has the declaration of intent and prouncment as husband and wife the rest is up to you. We are doing a welcome, memorial candle, parents blessing, mothers last kiss before the first, vows (declaration of intent), rings, closing wishes, prouncment as husband and wife, and kiss. It's like 8 pages but it's so romantic and heartfelt. I'm planning to print it and bind it and keep it forever.

We wrote our own vows and had the officiant do his portion during the ring exchange (the do yous). We wanted to tailor our vows to fit our personalities and expectations. But we still had the legal verbiage done during our ring exchange. It worked perfectly for us.

We wrote our vows, but did them in a way that the officiate read them as a question and we answered together "we will". Otherwise, they did seem more as a letter rather than a vow.

Thank you all so much!! This is extremely helpful!!

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Hi Tara! Welcome to the WeddingWire Community! I am glad you were able to receive more insights on vows! You all will have to declare your intentions to marry, but vows can also be added to further state and solidify your wishes/promises! Do you and your future spouse plan on writing any?