Written Vows

How to write wedding vows for him

There is one failure mode that catches almost everyone writing vows for a husband, and it is not a lack of feeling. It is that praise for a man collapses into the same four abstractions — strong, supportive, hard-working, my best friend — and abstractions cannot be pictured.

Everything below is about getting underneath them. If you want finished wording to adapt instead, there are 23 complete vows for him.

The four traps

“You are my best friend”

The single most common line in wedding vows, and it tells the room nothing. Every couple getting married says it. Ask instead: what do you do together that friends do not? What has he sat through with you that a friend would have been let off?

“Your strength” and “your support”

Both are conclusions with the evidence removed. Nobody can picture strength. They can picture him carrying a mattress up three flights at eleven at night without complaining once, which is presumably what you meant.

The résumé vow

Listing what he does for a living, what he has achieved, how hard he works. It reads like a reference. His achievements are not why you are marrying him and everyone present knows it.

The apology vow

“I know I am difficult”, “I know I do not say it enough”. Self-deprecation is a reflex when we feel exposed, and it quietly turns a vow about him into a vow about you. One line at most.

The detail test

Take any sentence in your draft and ask: could this be said by someone else, about someone else, at a different wedding? If yes, it is scaffolding and it comes out. If the answer is no — if it could only be said by you about him — it stays, however small or unromantic it looks on the page.

The lines that pass this test are almost never the impressive ones. They are the domestic ones: what he does with his hands, what he says when he is tired, the specific way he is kind that nobody outside the house would know about.

Six questions that get past it

  1. What does he do when you are ill — specifically, physically, what does he do?
  2. What has he fixed, carried, driven or queued for without being asked?
  3. How is he with your family — and with the member of it who is hardest work?
  4. What does he do that used to annoy you and now does not?
  5. What is he like at the thing he is worst at? That is often where the love is.
  6. What did he do in the worst week you have had together?

One worked example

The first draft, which is the draft nearly everybody writes:

“Tom, you are my best friend and my rock. Your strength and your support have carried me through so much. I love how hard you work for us and how much you care about the people around you. I promise to always be there for you.”

Nothing in it is untrue and nothing in it is his. Here are the raw answers to questions 1, 3 and 6 from the same person:

When I’m ill: he brings toast cut into triangles like I’m nine and doesn’t say anything about it

With my family: he takes my grandad to the garden centre every other Saturday. Grandad is quite hard going. He’s never once complained or mentioned it to me

Worst week: when I didn’t get the job, he cancelled everything and we drove to the coast and he didn’t make me talk about it

The same vow, rewritten

From the answers above · 50 seconds

Tom, when I am ill you bring me toast cut into triangles, as though I am nine years old, and you have never once said anything about it.

You take my grandad to the garden centre every other Saturday. He is hard work and we both know it, and in four years you have not mentioned it to me a single time. I only know because he told me.

The week I did not get the job, you cancelled everything and drove me to the coast and did not make me talk. You knew. You always know.

I am not going to tell you that you are my rock, because you would hate it. I am going to promise you the same attention you have given me — the quiet, unasked-for, entirely unglamorous kind. That is the whole vow.

Same person, same feelings, same marriage. The only difference is that the second version names what the first version summarised.

Then

Cut it by a third, then read it aloud standing up — the full process is on how to write your own wedding vows, and openings and closings covers the two lines people find hardest. If you would rather start from something finished, take one of the complete vows for him and put one of your own details in the middle of it.

Common questions

What should I say in my wedding vows to him?
Say the thing you would be slightly embarrassed to have him overhear you telling a friend. That is almost always the specific, unglamorous detail — how he is with your mother, what he does when you are ill, the thing he fixes without being asked — and it is always better than the adjective you were going to use instead.
How do I write vows for him without being cheesy?
Cut every abstract noun. “Your strength”, “your kindness”, “your support” are the four horsemen of a flat vow — they are claims, and a room cannot picture a claim. Replace each one with the moment that made you think it, and the cheesiness goes with it.
How long should my vows to him be?
Forty-five seconds to a minute, and the same as his. Agree the length before either of you writes anything — a mismatch is far more awkward than a short vow.
Should my vows to him be funny?
One joke early, then stop. Humour buys you the room's attention and then spends it; a vow that is funny the whole way through reads as a defence against saying the real thing. Land it sincere — that is what he will remember and what the photographs will catch.