Blended family wedding vow examples

When there are children, the vows have a second audience, and it is the one that will remember them longest. A promise made to a child in front of a room is the most checkable thing anybody says all day.

The vows below make those promises small on purpose. Nothing in them claims a role that has not been offered, and nothing in them promises a feeling — only things somebody can be held to.

When children are in the vows

The promises they will actually check

A child hearing a promise about themselves at a wedding is listening for one thing: whether it is a real promise or a nice sentence about them.

Do not claim a title nobody gave you: Promising to be their parent, when they already have those, asks them to make room for something they were not consulted about. Promise the behavior instead — the school run, the swimming lesson, the fourth chair — and let them decide what to call you.
Name them, and name them separately: Two children are two people. One sentence covering both is a sentence about a category. Whatever you promise, promise it to each of them by name, in a detail that is only theirs.
Small, dull and keepable beats moving: Being at every pick-up you say you will be at is a promise that can be kept for years. Loving them as your own cannot be tested, and children are unusually good at hearing the difference.

Say it to them, not about them. If a promise is made in the third person while they are standing there, they will notice that too.

Written for this page

Four blended family examples

Each one names the arc underneath it, why it works, and how to swap your own details in.

These run shorter than the 150 to 300 words a finished set usually takes. That is deliberate: each one is cut to the length where you can still see the arc working. Yours will be longer, because yours will have the details these cannot have.

When there are children

The admission

I am not here to replace anyone.

I am here for the school run, the wrong-sized shoes, the tenth reading of the same book.

[Their name], I promise you the boring parts. That is where I will be.

Written for this page38 words · 25 sec

Why it works: Opens by naming the fear in the room and setting it down. The promise is deliberately unglamorous, because the unglamorous version is the one a child can check.
Make it yours: Say the bracketed name out loud when you practice. A vow addressed to a child mid-way through is the moment the room stops breathing — do not rush it.

The wrong size, every package

The trivial object

The first Christmas I got Nell’s size wrong in every single package. You did not tell me until January.

So I promise to keep guessing. I will get it wrong, keep the receipt, and go back on Saturday.

About the things that actually matter to her, I promise to ask first, and to ask her.

Written for this page55 words · 40 sec

Why it works: Promises to keep getting something wrong, which is the only kind of promise about a child that nobody has to pretend about. The child is named once and the promise concerning her is separate and quieter, so the joke never lands on her.
Make it yours: The first thing you got wrong is better material than the first thing you got right. Say what you will keep doing about it, then say what you will ask rather than guess — and say who you will ask.

The car park, and the fourth time

The promise renewed

I chose you in a car park outside a swimming lesson, holding somebody else’s towel.

I chose you again the night Theo was sick and asked for you and not me, and I was glad it was you he asked for.

I am choosing all three of you here, which is the easy one.

The fourth time is years off. He will be sixteen and want nothing from me but a ride. I will be in the car.

Written for this page78 words · 55 sec

Why it works: Each repetition points somewhere new — a car park, a night the child asked for the other one, the wedding itself. The last promise is set years out and is still small enough to check: being in the car.
Make it yours: Find two moments you chose the household rather than one person in it, including one that stung. Put the fourth far enough into the future that promising it costs you something.

The fourth chair

The admission

There were three chairs at your kitchen table. You bought a fourth one second-hand and put it there without saying anything about it.

So here is the promise: without saying anything about it. The ride at seven thirty. The extra sandwich. The school play, both nights, because Ivy is in one and Sam is in the other.

I am the fourth chair. It was in the room before I noticed it was mine.

Written for this page73 words · 50 sec

Why it works: The whole vow is one object. Nothing is claimed about replacing anybody, because the chair was bought second-hand and put in the room before the question came up — and the promise is only to carry on doing what has already been done.
Make it yours: Find the thing that was true before anyone agreed to it out loud. Then name three ordinary duties in the same breath, because those are the ones the children can check you on.

Everybody in the promise, by name

All thirty-eight wedding vow examples: The whole corpus on one page, with the arcs underneath them and the lines worth cutting.
How to write wedding vows: The whole method, given away — how to start when the page will not start, and what makes a promise worth saying.

Personal Vows asks the questions that get the details out — the story you always end up telling, the thing you are actually promising, who else is in it — and writes four drafts from your answers and nothing else. Where a name or a detail was not given, the draft leaves a bracket for you to fill in rather than inventing a child, a memory, or a relationship.

Get Started