Weddings may be riddled with tradition—a white dress, something blue, the bouquet toss—but one area that doesn’t need to be conventional are your wedding vows. If you’re striving for a more personalized wedding, you’ll want to write modern wedding vows.

How do you write modern wedding vows? Here are 11 tips to capture how you feel without sounding old-fashioned.

Tip #1: Focus on Your Partnership

Modern marriage is about equality. You are entering into a partnership where one person does not hold more power or meaning over the other. Gender role expectations are becoming blurred. In many cases, these once highly regarded roles of who should cook and who should bring home the paycheck are being tossed out the window. This is the modern marriage.

How can you represent your partnership within your modern wedding vows? Consider answering the following questions to gain inspiration.

• In what ways has your partner shown you support? In what ways have you shown your partner support?

• Describe why your relationship feels like a true partnership.

• What common viewpoints do you both share about equality in marriage?

• What expectations are there around your roles at home? What responsibilities will you share?

Tip #2: Consider Your Communication Style

Having strong communication is said to be one of the best ways to ensure a healthy and happy relationship. This does not always mean you’ll get along or that you won’t argue. But how you communicate during the challenging times reveals the most about your relationship and why it will likely stand the test of time.

To write modern wedding vows, include details about how you plan to be strong communicators within your marriage. Describe why you believe this will positively influence your marriage. Try answering these questions to help you get started.

What did your last big fight look like? How did it get resolved?

How do you communicate with your fiancé when you’re frustrated or upset about something?

How do you show love for your fiancé?

Tip #3: Consider Your Lifestyle

Generations ago the lifestyle of a soon-to-be married couple didn’t vary too much from couple to couple. There were certain, assumed characteristics and responsibilities for each the husband and wife. But today, for the modern couple, the only rule is there are no rules when it comes to what your marriage, lifestyle, or wedding must look like.   

When you plan to start writing your modern wedding vows, reflect on your lifestyle. This will provide vow material. Here are some questions to help get the ideas flowing.

• What makes your relationship unique compared to others?

• What is the most different thing about you two that you just adore?

• How will your lifestyle provide a strong basis for your marriage?

Tip #4: Write How You Speak

Dictation communicates feeling and sentiment. The style you choose to write your vows in can determine if they’ll sound old-fashioned or current. The key to writing modern wedding vows is to write sentences that you could actually hear yourself saying.

For example, if you don’t typically use overly fanciful language, steer clear from poetic sentences. Instead, write articulate and concise sentences to match your natural speaking rhythm.

If you’re challenged with how to do this, I recommend actually talking about your love story before trying to write it down. Turn on the voice recording feature on your phone and riff about your relationship. Then transcribe the recording. Once you do this, you’re guaranteed to have modern wedding vows that sound just like you.

Tip #5: Mention Their Children

You might be marrying someone who already has children. To write modern wedding vows, it’s a good idea to include a sentence or two about their children who will soon become your own.

This will show that you view your future together as a family instead of just as a couple. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to determine what you’d like to say in your modern wedding vows about your future family.

• How do your fiancés kids make you feel?

• Why are you excited to become their parent?

• What promises do you have for the child?

Tip #6: Share During Your First Look

Traditional weddings do not include a first look. So if you’re looking to create an overall more modern wedding, consider a first look. This is not only an opportunity to see your fiancé before the wedding chaos begins—it’s also a time when you two can share your wedding vows.

When it’s just the two of you and perhaps your wedding photographer and cinematographer present, the moment will feel more intimate. This can be a romantic moment to share your wedding vows.

Tip #7: Follow an Outline

It might sound counterintuitive to embrace structure while trying to write modern wedding vows. However, following a step-by-step vow writing guide will help to achieve your goal.

“You need to learn the rules before you can break them.” Have you heard of this saying? Think of this vow writing guide in the same way. Learn the method so that you can then take some creative liberties in creating your modern wedding vows.

The general outline is the following:

• Brainstorm ideas

• Discover themes

• Write your first draft

• Edit your final draft

• Practice reading your wedding vows

Here you can find the details on how to utilize this vow writing outline further.

Tip #8: Talk about Your Challenges

On your wedding day, you may naturally gravitate toward focusing on the highlights of your love story and blissfully ignoring the hard times. This would be a missed opportunity.

What makes a relationship strong and one that will withstand many years is how you endured through challenging times together. Here are some wedding vow writing prompts for you to try.

• Describe some of the challenges you two have had as a couple. How did you work through these?

• In what ways have you grown as an individual because of your relationship road bumps?

• In what ways have you two grown as a couple because of challenges?

• How have you shown each other support during difficult situations?

Remember—a challenge doesn’t have to mean one person did something wrong. Think about hard times in your and your fiancés life. Was one of you out of work for a while? What about the process of grieving a loved one?

These are the moments that we can see our love in a deeper, even more meaningful way. Embrace these memories to create modern wedding vows that capture your entire love story, instead of just the happy parts.

 Tip #9: Use Nicknames

While inside jokes are not something I’d recommend including in your wedding vows, there are personalized touches you can add to write more modern wedding vows. Nicknames are my favorite way to personalize wedding vows.

What is your favorite nickname for your fiancé? Keep it appropriate. Pooky bear or cutie booty might be a little much for the wedding ceremony. Opt for a nickname you both adore but won’t make your guests uncomfortable.

Tip #10: Find Inspiration

Most writers are inspired by something. What could inspire you to write modern wedding vows?

There are typical things like reading old love letters or recalling memories of your favorite dates. But why not explore more unusual places to find wedding vow inspiration?  

Scroll through your text history and old Facebook photo albums. Skim through clothes hanging in your closet to see which items jog memories of outings together. How about taking a self-guided tour of your own home? As you move from room to room, remember memories you two made there together.

Turning to more eccentric ways to find inspiration will help you to capture modern wedding vows.  

Tip #11: Use a Wedding Vow Writing Service

Writing your own wedding vows can be a challenge—especially when you’re trying to make sure they capture modern elements. Consider hiring help.

Wedding Words is a wedding vow writing service that can provide you with support. Wedding Words offers two types of services.

Their first service is one-on-one custom vow writing. This is ideal for the busy couple who wants to write modern wedding vows but doesn’t have the time or desire to do it completely on their own.

The other service that Wedding Words offers is an online vow writing course. This DIY approach allows you to write your own modern wedding vows while being guided along a structured process. The course includes videos and slides with details on how to brainstorm vow ideas, write a first draft, edit your vows, write a final copy of your vows, and confidently deliver your vows.

Whatever wedding vow writing service you decide to use, you’ll create modern wedding vows that you’ll be proud to share on your wedding day.