The structure that works
Most weddings here are civil ones. Of the 246,897 marriages in England and Wales in 2022, the ONS recorded 83.0% as civil rather than religious. The five-part shape below is ours, not a convention we are reporting, and it works the same in a register office, a humanist ceremony or a church:
- I. Declaration, ~15 words
- II. Why I love you, ~30 words
- III. Promises, ~45 words
- IV. The future, ~20 words
- V. Closing line, ~10 words
Total length: about 120 words, or 60–90 seconds spoken. Long enough to carry weight; short enough to keep the room with you.
I. Open with a declaration
One sentence that names the moment. The legal words are fixed and sit apart from anything you write: section 44 of the Marriage Act 1949 requires the declaration "I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, AB, may not be joined in matrimony to CD" and the contracting words "I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, AB, do take thee, CD, to be my lawful wedded wife [or husband]", with shorter alternatives allowed by section 44(3A). Your own opening line goes alongside those, never instead of them. Example:
"I, James, take you, Sarah, to be my wife, from today and for every day after."
The job of this line is to anchor everyone in the room. They know you're going to say it; saying it well is the formal start. Don't try to be clever here, clarity beats wordplay.
II. Say why you love them
Two or three specific reasons. Specific is the entire game here. "You make me laugh" tells the room nothing. "You laugh at your own jokes before the punchline lands, and I'm always there for the punchline" tells the room a marriage. Example:
"I love the way you sing along to songs you don't know the words to. I love that you call your mum every Sunday. I love that you've never once made me feel small for not knowing something."
Three reasons is the right count: fewer feels thin, more feels like a list. Lean into ordinary moments. Wedding guests don't want to hear about grand gestures; they want to hear about coffee in the morning.
III. Make three concrete promises
This is the heart of the vow. Promises are concrete actions, not abstract feelings. "I promise to love you always" is a feeling. "I promise to make us tea when one of us is too tired to ask for it" is a promise.
"I promise to keep choosing you, even on the days when you've left wet towels on the bed. I promise to be the calm one when you can't be, and to let you be the calm one when I can't. I promise to always tell you when something is wrong, before it becomes something we can't talk about."
The "I promise to / I promise to / I promise to" cadence is doing real work. It signals to the room that this is the centre of the vow, and gives you a structure to write into. Aim for three. Two feels under-baked, four loses momentum.
IV. Acknowledge the future
One short sentence that names the unknowns. This is the most honest part of any vow. Example:
"I don't know what the next fifty years will bring, but I know I want to face it with you."
The future-acknowledging line is the one your guests will remember a year later when something hard happens to one of you. It earns its place.
V. Close with one strong line
A single closing sentence that summarises the whole thing. This is the line that should be the last thing the room hears before you stop talking. Example:
"I am yours, and you are mine, and I will spend the rest of my life proving I was paying attention."
Keep this line short. Aim for under 20 words. It needs to be deliverable without faltering and rememberable without effort.
What most couples get wrong
- Inside jokes that exclude the room. Funny once, awkward forever.
- Reciting song lyrics or poetry as the vow. Quote a line if you want; don't outsource the whole thing.
- Writing them the night before. Start six weeks out, do two drafts, leave it alone for a week, then revise.
- Reading them dramatically. Read like you're talking to one person, the person you're marrying. The room will lean in.
- Comparing length with your partner. Settle on a rough target together. The shorter set always lands as well as the longer one.
Renewal vows
The same five parts work when you renew your vows; what changes is that the promises and the future now have years of evidence behind them. In part III, swap the promises you hoped to keep for three you have kept, named plainly: the night shifts covered, the house rebuilt, the parent nursed. In part IV, look forward from where you are now rather than from the start. Then close as before, with one strong line. A renewal is a chance to say what the first set could only guess at, so concrete memories carry more weight than they did on the wedding day.
Keeping them after the day
Once you've said your vows, the temptation is to fold the paper into the wedding album and not see it again for ten years. The vows are the most important sentences either of you will write, they deserve somewhere visible.
Keep the words somewhere you'll see them. Copy the final version into a notebook you'll keep, or frame the handwritten card you read from on the day: the creases and the nervous handwriting are half the point.
There is other writing attached to a wedding. What to write in a wedding card is the compressed version your guests are stuck with. Further along the wedding stage sits the money side of being a guest, starting with how much to spend on a wedding gift.
Related: Anniversary gifts by year · AI couple portraits explained
