Most beautiful vows you have heard/read? Please share!

I don't know if they are the most beautiful but I finished mine last night. I will be honest I did a Google search of vows and took a lot from there.

"I promise to you to always laugh with you, even at your silly jokes. To always listen to what you have to say, even when we don't see eye to eye, and to remember love is saying 'I feel differently' instead of 'you're wrong'. I promise to always be your confidant and partner in crime. Most importantly, I promise to love you, under any circumstances; happy or sad, easy or difficult, for the rest of our lives. I am the luckiest and I couldn't imagine growing old with anyone else."

We kept them short and sweet. We also worked with our Officiant to write the whole ceremony so it's all very personal.

I'm not sure if this classifies as vows, but there is a Shakespeare quote that I adore and I'm hoping to incorporate into our wedding, either in the vows or elsewhere.

"Doubt thou the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love."

I haven't really started mine yet. I just make note of little inside jokes and things that are personal to us as I remember them. If Celia jumps in, she has a good pinterest board for inspiration. I can't link becasue it's blocked at work.

One thing I will share is that I went to a wedding where after the groom said his vows, he pulled the bride in and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh and cry. It was one of the sweetest moments I have ever seen. Even though they were in front of a bunch of people, they were still able to have a private moment.

Http://www.pinterest.com/Celiamilton/wedding-vows-and-readings/

There are about 10 officiants that contribute to that board, so there is a wide array of things, religious and not..

Elyse, I did a wedding a few years ago where the bride and groom actually whispered their vows to each other; not one guest heard one word. It was so intimate and moving it literally makes me tear up to think about it.

I tell my couples (who are writing their own) that the best vows don't sound like great literature; they sound like you. One paragraph (short, 3-4 sentences) about what you love about your partner; one paragraph about what you'll do to keep your marriage solid. Some of my favorites over the years have been funny and sweet; a little personal, and not typically, classically romantic.

We wrote our own. We got so many compliments and so many people who said "this is the first wedding I've ever cried at" lol. One thing I hate is when couples just talk about how much they love each other. They are supposed to be vows, as in promises to each other.

I promised to:

-Always be his teammate and never his competition (in reference to the fact that he was worried that my vows would be better than his)

-Gratitude in the face of any challenges. Never forget how lucky I am to have met my soul mate at age 16

-Protect him from stray dogs

-Let him play video games a reasonable amount of time

-Stay his best friend despite becoming his wife

My FH decided (joking) he didn't want to write vows and was just going to say (what she said) lol

Missy, I love that sonnet!

@Val, too bad the groom traditionally goes first!

Here are mine. I'm really proud of them and I practiced them enough that I was able to say them without crying my eyes out. I got choked up but I didn't fully lose it.

I promise today to always be at your side and to be the most dependable person in your life. I promise to give your dreams wings and to provide you with roots to ground you for when you are feeling lost or afraid.

I promise to keep growing with you through all of life’s twists, turns and changes. I promise to not expect you alone to make me happy, but to take care of my own body, mind and soul so I can bring my best to our relationship but also to reach out to you for help when I need it. I promise you that I will always fight for our relationship and that you will never go through a day without feeling the love I have for you.

I cannot promise that I will ever stop being cranky when I’m hungry or that I’ll suddenly become someone who doesn’t mind losing a board game but I can promise to never take for granted that I have someone like you to love me despite my faults. I promise to always appreciate you and the love you give me.

I choose you because of everything you are and everything you will be, and I promise that I will always be the girl with cartoon hearts in her eyes for you. Most of all, I promise to trust in the love that we have and to respect the promises we have made today to each other. Evan, I promise to love you for all the days of my life; thank you for spending your life with me.

Also- when we decided to write our vows we gave each other guidelines. We both started with "I promise" and finished with "Thank you for spending your life with me."

Here were my husband's vows to me:

I promise to you that I am absolutely committed to you, to our relationship, and to this marriage. I’m here today because I know that being with you is the best thing that I ever could have hoped for. I know that you’ll always make me laugh when I’m frustrated, support me when I need it, and gently nudge me when I’m taking too long to make a decision.

I’m as happy and as confident as I’ve ever been because I know that no matter what happens, I have you. And I want you to know that I’ll always be there to make you feel better when you’ve had a rough day, to listen to you when you have something to share, to be as patient as possible when you’re hungry, and to remind you every day of how much I love you.

You’re my best friend and I feel like the luckiest person alive to be standing here with you. Thank you for spending your life with me.

Here are mine: I got choked up in the beginning but was able to pull through:

"First, I want to start off by saying that I'm so proud of us. We scrambled, panicked, but we pulled this off. We make a good team. I find confidence in how united we are in our goals. I find peace in our one vision.

As cerebral as I am, I stand up here to admit that my heart is drawn to yours. It always has been, before my mind could ever comprehend it, whether it picking out my new Atlanta phone number or a conversation with Katie that I let it slip that you were the one --- 3 years ago.

Today, I promise to always let my heart be connected to yours and to stop worrying whether or not my brain can play catch up. I promise to never lose that sense of anticipation when I round the corner to our house, just in case you might be home. I promise to grow and learn with you. I even promise to try and cook more often, but I stand here to say that you're better at it. But most importantly, I promise to always put our team first, to consider you always in every decision I make.

I love you so deeply and I feel so honored to be the woman you chose to spend the rest of your life with."

So far, this is what I have:

I knew you would come for me. I knew you were the one when I realized your smile was my heaven, your arms my safe haven. You are my always & forever, my happily ever after, my dream come true, my one & only, my everything.

ETA: All of the above is from Pinterest

Oh my, @Celia whispered vows, I've never heard of that or seen it, but it sounds heart wrenchingly beautiful!

We're writing our own but haven't started yet. I do plan to include "I promise to have a sandwich when I'm feeling grumpy".

This post is also helping me. We wanted to say traditional vows. Since We have written hundreds of letters to each other (all while he was deployed) my pastor thought it would be great for us to read letters to each other before we say our vow. I love them idea, but I'm having a hard time getting started.

See I'm going to be so unpopular here and say that my least favourite American wedding tradition is personalised vows. I honestly can't stand them. 90% of the time they make me cringe.

I'm a novelist and a writer and my FH said to me not long ago 'So I guess you're going to write so pretty great vows' and I replied with 'hell no'. And explained we were not, under any circumstances doing personal vows.

Thing is, when they are just nice, reworded version of the vows, adding a few personalised versions of what you promise to do, I don't mind them. But when people go beyond purple prose into ultra-violet prose I just sit there cringing and waiting for them to be over.

But my advice to someone who does want to write their own - remember that less is always more. Be simple, to the point and smart with your word choices.

Sorry, this is a bit of a rant because more than just my FH keep asking me about writing our own vows and it's bugging me.

I actually just liked the traditional vows. They said everything that I wanted to vow. Just remember that it's a vow, not a testimonial on how you feel that day.

I do think there is a certain beauty to saying the vows that have been said for decades, and a lot of my wackiest, most unorthodox couples choose to embed them in the middle of their completely unique ceremonies. You need to do what fits for you.

@Celia the whispered ones sound beautiful!!

And I agree with personal sometimes being awkward, but that's mostly when I don't know the couple very well when I was going to distant cousins weddings as a kid.

I remember in a previous post that Celia said, she mentioned saying the vows quietly between eachother and then display the vows printed out, which is what I really want to do.

Haven't written them out yet, but I love the ones printed.