You’re a busy bride. You don’t have endless time to stress out about writing your wedding vows but you do want your vows to be unforgettable.

As a professional wedding vow writer, I totally understand and I’m here to help you check this wedding to-do item off your checklist. Follow these five steps and you’ll be on your way to writing impactful and personalized wedding vows.

Step 1: Start with a Brainstorm

Remember in middle school when you’d brainstorm ideas for an essay or science project? During these brainstorms your teacher had you consider any idea and had you do it without judgment.

This process often allowed you to uncover concepts you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of on your own. You can use this same method to come up with ideas for what to include within your wedding vows.

Get situated in a comfortable spot with your pen and journal. You’re about to free write. Jot down jokes your fiancé has told, the memory of your first vacation together, and how your fiancé makes you feel.

The key to brainstorming for your wedding vows is to leave judgment outside this creative area. Just like in school, brainstorming is a safe space where there is no such thing as a bad idea. You’ll edit your notes later when you decide what to include in your wedding vows. For now, embrace every thought by writing it down on paper.

Step 2: Identify Themes

Consider your favorite book or movie—I bet you can pick out the themes that were present.

Popular theme concepts in works of writing are things like:

• Love conquers all

• Overcoming adversity

• Crime doesn’t pay

• Humans all have the same needs

• Sacrifice brings reward

• The importance of family

While your wedding vows are not going to be a 400-page novel, they should still include themes. Themes are a great way to organize your thoughts. Plus, they provide a sense of direction and meaning to your personalized wedding vows.

Here are some examples of themes you may use within your wedding vows:

• Your fiancés sense of humor

• How your fiancé inspires you

• The friendship you two share

• Adventure

• Taking risks

• Mutual goals

• You shared desire to have a family

• Generosity

• Thoughtfulness

How do you determine which themes to use? Review your brainstorm notes.

What common concepts do you see? Highlight each brainstorming note using a different color to denote which sentences represent which themes. Perhaps purple showcases every note that falls into the “thoughtfulness” theme and yellow represents notes with the “adventure” theme.

Choose two to four themes to use within your wedding vows. Your themes should be chosen based on how important these concepts are to your relationship.

Step 3: Create Your First Draft

Now that you’ve brainstormed notes for your custom wedding vows and you’ve identified what themes will be used throughout your vows, you can start working on your first draft.

Writing the first draft of your wedding vows can be a challenge. Where do you begin? What should you include? How do you end the vows?

Follow this Wedding Words outline. You’ll feel guided as you work through your first draft.

• Start with a powerful first sentence that directly addresses your fiancé

• Describe what you love about your fiancé

• Describe what you love about your relationship together

• Communicate your hopes for your marriage

• Close with an expression of your love

Aim to write vows that are 650 words or less. This will ensure that your vows are less than five minutes in speaking length. Anything longer and you’ll lose the attention of your guests. More importantly, your vows will be most impactful when they are concise and articulate.

Step 4: Edit Your Final Draft

How does your first draft turn into your final draft? It’s all about the editing process. Reread your wedding vows through the eye of an editor.

Here are common things to look for as you edit your wedding vows:

• Misspelling and grammatical errors

• Run on sentences

• Redundancy

• Clichés

• Word count exceeds 650 words

Step 5: Practice

The final step in the wedding vow process has to do with your delivery. Reciting your wedding vows before the ceremony can help you overcome public speaking fears.

Practice reading your wedding vows in front of a mirror or your maid of honor. You can even video record yourself. When you practice, you can identify areas for improvement. It might feel painful at first but you’ll be grateful to have worked out any nervous ticks before the wedding cinematographer captures your vow reading.

Still struggling to write your wedding vows? Wedding Words collaborates with couples to write personalized wedding vows. Let’s connect to see how we can work together to help you write your own custom wedding vows.