Traditional wedding vows

These are the words most people in an English-speaking room are already waiting for. They are printed in full below, along with what each clause is actually doing and what happens when a couple keeps the architecture and puts their own life inside it.

The traditional form is the most borrowed vow there is, and that is its strength rather than its problem. Everyone knows the shape, so nothing you say after it has to explain itself.

The text everyone recognizes

The traditional words, in full

This is the form an English-speaking room expects to hear, and the one nearly every other version is a variation on.

The traditional form

To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

The wording comes from the Book of Common Prayer, the English prayer book first printed in 1549 and revised in 1662 into the version most often quoted since. The older printing sets the last clause as till death us do part; the word order most people say now came later. Four centuries of repetition are why a room recognizes the whole thing whether or not anyone in it has ever been to a church.

Couples take all of it, one clause of it, or the shape of it with their own life inside. Which parts a particular tradition expects is not something this page can answer for you — what it can do is show what each clause is actually promising, and what happens when somebody fills one in.

Clause by clause

What each part is actually promising

Every clause is a pair or a term — two conditions, or a length of time — and none of them is about how anybody feels. That is what has kept them usable.

“To have and to hold, from this day forward”: The opening clause is the only one that is physical. It promises an action rather than a feeling — and because hold is doing so much work in so few letters, it is also the clause that means nothing at all until somebody puts an object underneath it.
Worked below: To have and to hold, made literal — holding turns out to be a ladder in September and a dog at the vet’s.
“For richer, for poorer”: A pair that names money without naming an amount, so it fits a room where nobody knows what anybody earns. The half worth writing about is almost always poorer: it is the one that has already happened to most couples, and it is where the evidence is.
Worked below: For poorer, specifically — answers half the pair, and says why the other half needs no promise.
“In sickness and in health”: The clause that names the thing nobody plans for. It promises the same behavior on both sides of a condition neither of you chooses, which is why it lands as a vow rather than a hope. The way to make it yours is to stop it being hypothetical: name an illness that has already happened, in what it looked like day to day rather than what it was called. If nothing has, say so plainly and promise the behavior anyway.
Worked below: The traditional words, made specific — names the year one of them was ill and would not say so.
“Till death do us part”: The only clause that sets a term rather than a feeling. It says how long, not how much, and it is the one promise nobody can demonstrate in advance — which is exactly why it is the line people go quiet on. Some keep it word for word. Others answer it the way the vow below does: by pointing at the stretch already survived, and enlisting for the part that has not happened yet.
Worked below: The traditional words, made specific — closes on the years already done, then enlists for the rest.

Quoting a clause is the cheap half. The line that makes the room go still is the one after it — the winter, the coat, the quarters counted out on the arm of the sofa.

What the form gives you

Why the old words still work

Four hundred years of repetition has made this text do something no vow written this year can do: it arrives already understood.

The framing is free: Say "for richer, for poorer" and the room supplies the whole idea — the good years, the hard ones, the promise covering both. You did not have to build any of that, which leaves your whole length for what only you can say.
The clauses are paired on purpose: Better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health. Each pair promises the same behavior on both sides of a condition nobody gets to choose, which is exactly what makes it a vow rather than a hope.
It is a frame, and a frame wants filling: The version that lands is almost never the recital alone. It is the clause, then the two occasions it has already been true, named by their objects. Quote the line the room knows; then say which part of it you mean.

Written for this page

Seven traditional examples

Seven vows built on the traditional architecture — quoted, then answered with something checkable.

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.

The traditional words, made specific

The words everyone knows

Everyone here already knows the words. For better, for worse. In sickness, in health.

I want to say which ones I mean. I mean the winter the boiler broke, and you wore my coat indoors and never once said it was hard. I mean the year you were ill and would not say so.

We did those years together already. I vow to do the rest with you — through the highs and the lows.

Written for this page75 words · 50 sec

Why it works: Borrows the one vow architecture every guest in the room already knows, then spends its whole length saying which part of it is true. The traditional line does the framing for free, so nothing after it has to explain itself.
Make it yours: Take the traditional line you already half expect to say. Then name the two hardest stretches you have come through by their objects — a coat, a boiler, a bad year. Naming them is the vow.

To have and to hold, made literal

The words everyone knows

To have and to hold, from this day forward.

I have been working out what holding is, and it is smaller than it sounds.

It is you at the bottom of the ladder in September while I did the gutter and said I was fine. It is you holding the dog at the vet’s so I did not have to.

To have and to hold. I will hold the ladder. I will hold the dog. I will be at the bottom of whatever the next one is.

Written for this page87 words · 60 sec

Why it works: Takes one clause of the traditional vow and refuses to leave it abstract. "Hold" does no work at all until two objects are put underneath it — a ladder and a dog at the vet’s — and then the line the room already knows means something checkable.
Make it yours: Choose the one traditional clause you know you want to say. Find two occasions it has already been true and name them by what was in somebody’s hands, then enlist for the next one without describing it.

For poorer, specifically

The words everyone knows

For richer, for poorer.

We have done poorer. Nineteen months of it, the apartment over the laundromat, you counting the electric bill out in quarters and singles on the arm of the sofa so I would not see you doing it.

I do not need to promise you richer. Richer looks after itself.

For poorer, then: I will count it out on the arm of the couch beside you, and neither of us will be doing it alone.

Written for this page78 words · 55 sec

Why it works: Answers half of the traditional pair and says out loud why the other half needs no promise. The hard stretch is carried by an amount of money and a piece of furniture rather than by any word for hardship, so none of it has to be taken on trust.
Make it yours: If you have already been through the poorer half, describe the room it happened in. The traditional line frames it for free; your half of the work is the quarters and singles.

The three times you already chose

The promise renewed

I chose you in a kitchen with bad light, before I knew what I was choosing.

I chose you again in a hospital corridor at four in the morning.

I am choosing you here, in front of everyone, which is the easiest of the three.

I will keep choosing you on the days it is not easy.

Written for this page57 words · 40 sec

Why it works: Each repetition changes what it refers to instead of restating the last one louder. That is the whole difference between live repetition and the dead "I vow… I vow… I vow…".
Make it yours: Find three moments you already chose each other. The wedding is the third one, not the first — and saying so out loud is the point.

Before witnesses

The trivial object

I was taught that a promise is a thing you make in front of witnesses so that you cannot quietly take it back.

So, in front of these people and before God: I will not take it back.

I will do the small work. The dishes. The patience. Asking twice how you really are.

Written for this page54 words · 35 sec

Why it works: Grounds the sacred in the domestic instead of stopping at the scripture. The named small work is what keeps it from becoming a reading.
Make it yours: If faith is central, put the ordinary work immediately after the sacred line. The pairing is what stops it sounding like a passage anyone could read.

In sickness, named

The words everyone knows

In sickness and in health.

We have done sickness. Nine days last March when you could not keep water down, and I learned the words for things I had never had to say out loud.

You apologized. Twice an hour. To me. For being ill.

In sickness, then: I am not accepting the apology. I will fill the cup, set it where you can reach it, and go back to my chair.

And in health, husband — I have wanted to call you that since March — I would like a great many years of nothing happening at all.

Written for this page99 words · about 1 minute

Why it works: Answers one clause of the traditional pair with a stretch that already happened, carried by a cup and a chair rather than by any word for hardship. The title arrives once, inside the health half, with the reason it has been waited for attached to it.
Make it yours: Pick the traditional clause you already know you want to say, and name the occasion it has been true. Then say what you want the other half of the pair to look like: years of nothing happening is an honest answer and a specific one.

From this day forward, and the days before it

The words everyone knows

From this day forward.

A word about the days before it.

For the first six years, this state would not have let us stand here. We did not spend them waiting. We spent them painting the back bedroom the wrong yellow, twice, and driving to your sister’s on the worst road in the county.

So: from this day forward. Also every day before it. I am not starting today. I am saying what was true at the first yellow.

Wife: the back bedroom is due another coat. I will be wrong about the color again, in front of everybody, as long as you want the house.

Written for this page106 words · about 1 minute

Why it works: Quotes the clause the room is waiting for and then argues with it gently: the promise is not starting today. The years the law took are one sentence long and are spent immediately on a back bedroom painted the wrong color twice, which is what keeps the vow addressed to one person rather than to an occasion.
Make it yours: If part of your history is that this took a while, give it one line and then get back to the house. What the room cannot supply for itself is the wrong yellow, the worst road in the county, and what you are going to be wrong about next.

The words are the easy half

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.

Anyone can copy the traditional lines; almost nobody can say offhand which two winters they mean by them. Personal Vows asks the questions that get those out — the story you always end up telling, the thing you are actually promising — and writes four drafts from your answers and nothing else. Where you did not tell us something, the draft leaves a bracket for you to fill in rather than inventing one.

Get Started