Wedding vows: 24 examples you can actually use

I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

And I promise you this: I will be honest with you when it is easy and when it is not. I will choose you on the ordinary days, which are most of them. This is my solemn vow.

I choose you. I will be kind to you, patient with you, and honest with you. I will stand beside you in the good years and the hard ones. Everything I have, I share with you. Everything I am, I give to you. For the rest of my life.

I promise to keep learning you. To ask how you are and wait for the real answer. To fight fairly and apologise first as often as I can manage.

I promise to be the person you can come home to on your worst day, and the one who is loudest for you on your best. I am not going anywhere. I take you, today and every day after it.

I, [name], take you, [name], to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

I, [name], take you, [name], to be my husband, to love, to honour and to cherish, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, for as long as we both shall live.

I take you to be my wife from this day forward — to have and to hold, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. I will love you when it is easy. I will love you when it is work. I give you my whole life, and I do it gladly.

In the presence of God and these our friends, I take thee to be my wife, promising with divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband, so long as we both shall live.

I promise to be honest with you. I promise to be kind to you. I promise to take your side. I promise to stay. That is all I have, and it is yours.

I will make you tea in the morning. I will listen when you have said it before. I will tell you the truth even when it costs me something. I will be here — through the boring parts, the frightening parts, and all the years I hope we get.

You are my favourite person. I promise to treat you like it — not only today, in front of everyone, but on a wet Tuesday when no one is watching. I take you as my husband, for the whole of my life.

I take you as you are, and I will love you as you become. For as long as I live.

I take you as my husband. I will be honest, I will be kind, and I will be here. That is the whole promise, and I will keep it every day I am given.

I do not have anything clever to say. I love you, I trust you, and I want the rest of my days to have you in them. I promise to look after you. I promise to let you look after me. I marry you today with my whole heart.

I am not going to promise you that I will always be easy to live with. I will promise you this instead: I will keep showing up. I will do the unglamorous work of loving you — the logistics, the difficult conversations, the third attempt at the same argument.

I will be proud of you out loud. I will be gentle with you in private. And when we are old and one of us is telling this story badly, I will let you finish it.

Eleven years ago you asked me a question in a car park and I have been answering it ever since. The answer is still yes.

I promise to keep choosing you — not once, today, in a nice room, but again every morning, in a much less nice room, usually before coffee. I promise you my patience, my honesty, and every good thing I have. I am yours.

I do not need you to complete me and I will never ask you to shrink. I want to build something alongside you that neither of us could build alone.

So I promise you room to grow, and a hand to hold while you do it. I promise to be your partner in the real sense — equal, honest, and in it. Today I marry my friend.

I come to you with a life already lived, and I am glad of it, because it brought me here.

I promise to love you without comparison and without conditions. I promise to love your children as my own and to earn that slowly, the way it should be earned. We are not starting over. We are starting together. And I take you, today, with everything I know now.

We have already done the hard parts. We have moved cities, sat in hospital corridors, and survived assembling furniture together.

So this is not a beginning — it is a promise about everything that comes next. I will keep being on your team. I will keep telling you the truth. I will keep coming home. I take you as my wife, at last, and for good.

I promise to love you, to support you, and to never once say “I told you so” out loud — I will think it, but you will never hear it.

More seriously: I promise you the best of me, and the honest rest of me. I will be steady when you need steady and ridiculous when you need ridiculous. I am so lucky it is you.

I vow to always let you have the last slice, to pretend I have not seen the episode, and to take your side in every argument with a stranger regardless of the facts.

And I vow the real things too — patience, honesty, and my whole heart, for as long as I have one.

I am told these are supposed to be brief, so: I love you, I like you, which is rarer, and I intend to keep doing both for a very long time. Everything else I will tell you in private, for the next fifty years.

Before God and everyone we love, I take you to be my wife. I promise to love you faithfully, to forgive you readily, and to walk beside you in whatever comes. With God’s help I will keep this promise as long as I live.

I make this covenant with you today: to love you as I have been loved, to serve you without keeping score, and to build a home where grace is the normal weather. I give myself to you, and I ask God to hold us to it.

I thank God for you, and I promise to spend my life proving I meant it. I will be patient. I will be kind. I will keep no record of wrongs. And when I fail at all three, I will come back and try again — every time, for the rest of my days.