personal written wedding vows

I am mainly putting this online because it can be pulled up from anywhere and possibly a guide for those of you who are (wisely I believe) writing your own. My wife and I decided to write our own and sat down for a multiple hour session and brainstormed what we wanted in them.

My wife is a bit of more gifted writer, so she did a little bit more than me in organizing our thoughts. In the end we decided to have the same beginning couple sentences, different middle, and the same final sentence. For some reason that makes sense to me to have the same beginning and ending and it helped having some commonality as well.

Vows are something that are incredibly deep. CS lewis often talks about how it is like losing a limb to break them, probably worse. I believe that's a pretty accurate representation. Another reason divorce is so brutal. There's a lot that can be said about that, but I don't want to go that route today. Vows are much different than promises. We use the word promise loosely in our culture, they are never vows. Marriage vows are something I think ends up being deeply rooted in who we are for the duration of our lives.

The vows themselves as I read over them always make me tear up. No way around it. More than anything in marriage we are called to change, or maybe not change per se, but rather get better. I can read these and see very clearly how we both need these things from each other and it is something we are committed to working at/on for the duration of our lives. Of course we fail, we are humans, but that's not it, we have vowed to do something and that commitment is what the vow looks like in the end. So here they are, maybe they are helpful, maybe not, but they are something we will do for the rest of our lives. First mine:

I take you, Jocelyn to be my wife,
I make this covenant with you,
before God, in marriage to display his grace through my unconditional love and commitment to you for the rest of my days on this earth. In my commitment of love to you, I vow to:

Put you second only to the Lord. Through God's grace,
I will be patient with you as you grow.
I will treat you with gentleness and not let the sun go down without resolving conflict.
You are a woman to be praised because you fear the Lord, and I will encourage you to seek Christ always.
I will be lionhearted and lamb-like as a leader in how I protect you and honor you in the decisions and choices I make.
I will be faithful to you and never leave you or give up on you, regardless of the difficulties we may face.

Jocelyn I will view you as a chosen daughter of God, holy and righteous, blameless in His sight.


Then Jocelyn's:

I take you, Jonathan to be my husband,
I make this covenant with you,
before God, in marriage to display his grace through my unconditional love and commitment to you for the rest of my days on this earth. In my commitment of love to you, I vow to:

Put you before anyone else on earth and put your needs before my own.
I will remain faithful to you. I will serve you and wash your feet as Christ did for his disciples.
I will trust you, respect you and support you in your role as my head and the God ordained leader of our household.
I will encourage you in your walk with Christ.
I will praise your strengths and share in your joys.
I will always forgive you, and hold no record of wrongs against you.
I will be patient with you and allow you to grow.
I will never give up on you or us, regardless of the difficulties we might face.

Jonathan I will view you as a chosen son of God, holy and righteous, blameless in His sight.