Read your draft back and look for a sentence starting “I will”. If there isn’t one, you have written a compliment. It may be a lovely compliment — but a vow is a thing you undertake, and a compliment commits you to nothing.
This is the failure mode that catches most people writing to a wife: the whole vow turns into praise. She is wonderful, she is beautiful, he is lucky. All true, all pleasant, and by the end nobody — including her — knows what he has actually promised.
The compliment test
Go through your draft line by line. Every sentence is doing one of two jobs: it describes her, or it commits you. Count them. A good vow is roughly a third description and two thirds commitment, and most first drafts come in at about nine to one the wrong way.
The fix is not to delete the praise. It is to convert it — because every thing you admire in her implies something it obliges you to do.
Five conversions
The compliment on the left is what people write. The vow on the right is what the compliment was actually trying to say.
“You are so patient.”
“I will try to be worth the patience, and to notice when I am spending it.”
“You always know what to say.”
“I will tell you what is wrong on the first day, not the fourth.”
“You make everything better.”
“I will not leave the making-better to you. Half of it is mine.”
“You are the strongest person I know.”
“I will make sure you never have to be the strong one on your own.”
“You have such a big heart.”
“I will protect the time and the energy that costs you, because I have watched what it costs.”
Notice what the right-hand column does that the left cannot: it can be kept, and it can be broken. That is what makes it a vow. She will remember a promise she can hold you to for the rest of her life; she will not remember being told she is patient.
Six questions
What does she carry that you have not been carrying your half of?
What is your worst habit inside this relationship — the one she has never made a fuss about?
What has she given up, or put off, that you have benefited from?
What does she do when nobody is watching and nobody thanks her for it?
What is the specific thing you keep meaning to say and have not said?
In thirty years, what will she be glad you promised today?
Question 2 is the one that produces the line people remember. A vow that admits one true fault and promises to work on it is worth ten that describe her virtues, because it costs the speaker something to say out loud.
One worked example
The compliment version, which is where nearly every draft starts:
“Anna, you are the most beautiful, kindest, most patient person I have ever met. You make me a better man. I am the luckiest person in this room, and I promise to love you forever.”
Five compliments and one promise so broad it means nothing. Same person, answering questions 2, 3 and 4:
Worst habit: I go quiet for days when work is bad and she has to guess what’s wrong
What she gave up: she turned down the Manchester job because of me and has never once brought it up
Unthanked: she rings my mother every Sunday. My mother. Not hers
The same vow, converted
From the answers above · 55 seconds
Anna, you turned down Manchester because of me, and in three years you have never once brought it up. I have thought about it a great deal more often than you know.
You ring my mother every Sunday. My mother. You have never mentioned that either.
So here is what I promise, and I am saying it in front of everyone so that it counts. I go quiet when things are bad and leave you to guess — that is mine, and it is not fair, and I will tell you on the first day instead of the fourth.
I promise you will never be the one doing the noticing on your own. And I promise that when the next Manchester comes along, it is your turn, and I’ll be the one packing.
Not one superlative survived, and it is a far warmer vow than the version made entirely of praise — because everything in it costs him something.
Say what you are going to do, not only what she is. A vow is an undertaking — if you read your draft back and it contains no sentence beginning “I will”, you have written a very nice compliment rather than a vow, which is the most common thing that goes wrong here.
How do I write vows for her that aren't clichéd?
Stop at the first superlative. “The most beautiful woman in the world”, “the best thing that ever happened to me”, “luckiest man alive” — these are unfalsifiable, and a room hears them as filler because everyone says them. One specific true observation is worth every superlative you own.
Should I say she looks beautiful in my vows?
One line, early, then move on. She will want to hear it and the room expects it. But a vow that spends its length on how she looks is a compliment on a day she has already been complimented forty times, and it says nothing about the marriage you are starting.
How many promises should be in my vows to her?
Three is plenty and one is enough if it is the right one. Concrete beats comprehensive: “I promise to say the thing rather than going quiet” is worth more than a list of six virtues, because it can actually be kept — or noticeably broken.