Complete vows, written to be said to a man standing three feet away with two hundred people watching. Take one whole, or take the shape of one and put your own details in it.
Warm · 55 seconds
I take you to be my husband, and I know exactly what I am asking for. I am asking for your bad mornings as well as your good ones, your worries at two in the morning, the version of you that nobody else gets to see.
I promise to be gentle with all of it. I promise to tell you the truth, to forgive quickly, and to keep choosing you on the days when choosing is work. I am yours from today, and I do not intend to be talked out of it.
Simple · 30 seconds
I choose you today and I will choose you tomorrow. I promise to be honest with you, patient with you, and on your side. I will look after you when you are ill and put up with you when you are difficult, which I am told is roughly the same skill. Everything I have is yours.
Emotional · 60 seconds
I noticed you before I understood why. It took me a long time to work out that what I was noticing was safety — that in a room full of people I could find you and stop bracing.
So this is my promise. I will be your safe room. I will not use what you tell me against you, ever. I will be kind to you when you have not earned it, and I will let you be kind to me when I do not think I deserve it. I take you, and I am not letting go.
Want one of these built around your own promises? Use the vow builder — pick a tone, answer four questions, get a draft you can edit.
The classic frame with a personal line added, which is what most couples actually want when they say they want traditional vows. For the authoritative text of each rite, see traditional wedding vows.
Traditional · 40 seconds
I, [name], take you, [name], to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.
And because a promise should sound like the person making it: I will still be laughing at your jokes when we are old and neither of us can remember the punchline.
Traditional · 45 seconds
Today I take you as my husband. I promise to love you when it is easy and when it is not. I promise to stay when it would be simpler to go quiet. I promise you my honesty, my patience, and the first thought I have every morning.
From this day forward, for better and for worse, for as long as we both shall live.
Traditional · 45 seconds
Before everyone we love, I give myself to you. I will honour you in the way I speak about you when you are not in the room. I will hold what you tell me in confidence. I will meet you as an equal, in the good years and the lean ones.
This is my vow, made freely, and I mean to keep it.
Short sentences, no metaphor, nothing to trip over. These are the ones to pick if you already know your voice will go.
Simple · 30 seconds
I promise to listen. I promise to tell you when something is wrong instead of making you guess. I promise to say sorry first when I can manage it. I promise to take your side. I promise to keep making you laugh. I promise to stay.
Simple · 35 seconds
Most of our life will be ordinary. Groceries, laundry, a hundred small decisions about dinner. I promise to be good company for that — not just for the holidays and the big days, but for the Tuesday evenings that make up most of a life. I want all of them, and I want them with you.
Simple · 20 seconds
I will be honest, I will be kind, and I will stay. Everything else I promise you I will promise again tomorrow, and the day after that, for as long as I get to.
Simple · 25 seconds
I am not going to try to say everything. I am going to say this: you are the best thing that has happened to me, I intend to spend my life proving I noticed, and I take you as my husband today with my whole heart and no hesitation at all.
Warmer and more specific. Swap the bracketed details for your own — one true detail is worth three beautiful sentences.
Romantic · 55 seconds
You are the first person who has ever made me feel like being fully known was safe rather than dangerous. You have seen me at my least impressive and you did not flinch, and I have thought about that more than you know.
I promise to be that for you. To know you properly, keep knowing you as you change, and never once make you smaller so that I feel bigger. I take you as my husband, and I am so glad it is you.
Romantic · 50 seconds
I fell in love with you at [place], although I did not admit it for [length of time]. It was not anything dramatic. It was the way you [small, specific thing he does] — and I remember thinking, quite clearly, oh no.
I promise to keep noticing things like that for the rest of my life. To pay attention to you. To be the person who sees you, on the days you feel invisible to everybody else.
Romantic · 40 seconds
I do not need our life to be extraordinary. I need it to be ours. I promise you slow mornings, a hand on your back in a crowded room, and someone who is genuinely pleased to hear the key in the door.
I promise to love you steadily, which I think is harder and better than loving you loudly. I take you, today and always.
Romantic · 50 seconds
We have already done the hard version of this. [Number] years, two of the worst ones anybody could have handed us, and here you still are, making tea and pretending you have not been awake since five.
So today is not a beginning, it is a declaration. I choose this. I choose you, deliberately, in front of everyone, and I will keep choosing you long after the flowers have gone in the bin.
Funny, then sincere — always in that order. If you want a whole page of these, see funny wedding vows.
Light-hearted · 45 seconds
I vow to let you believe you are better at parking. I vow to feign surprise every time you tell the story about [his story]. I vow never to point out that your fantasy team has not won anything since we met.
And underneath all of that: I vow to be loyal to you, honest with you, and entirely on your side, for as long as I am lucky enough to have you.
Light-hearted · 30 seconds
I was warned not to be funny in my vows, so I will be brief instead. You are kind, you are patient, and you have somehow put up with me for [length of time]. I promise to make the next fifty years worth the first [number]. That is it. That is the vow.
Light-hearted · 40 seconds
I promise to share the good blanket. I promise not to watch the next episode without you, and to be convincing about it if I do. I promise to remember which mug is yours.
I also promise the real things — patience, honesty, and my whole heart, for as long as I have one. But mostly the blanket.
Lightly religious wording for a ceremony that is not fully liturgical. For the required text of a particular rite, see religious wedding vows.
Faith · non-denominational · 40 seconds
Before God and everyone here, I take you to be my husband. I promise to love you faithfully, forgive you readily, and pray for you daily. Where you go I will go. With God’s help I will keep this promise for as long as I live.
Faith · non-denominational · 45 seconds
I make this covenant with you today, and I make it before God, because I do not trust myself to keep it alone. I will love you as I have been loved. I will serve you without keeping score. I will build a home with you where grace is the ordinary weather.
Faith · light touch · 35 seconds
I thank God for you, and I intend to spend a lifetime proving I meant it. I will be patient with you. I will be kind to you. I will keep no record of wrongs. And when I fail at all three — and I will — I will come back and try again.
Twenty seconds or under, for a small ceremony or a nervous speaker. More at short wedding vows.
Short · 12 seconds
I take you as my husband, my closest friend and my favourite person, and I promise to be honest, kind and here — for all of it, for the rest of my life.
Short · 15 seconds
I promise to love you, to be truthful with you, and to stay when it is hard. Today, tomorrow, and every day I am given after that.
Short · 10 seconds
You are my home. I take you as my husband, and I am not going anywhere.
Pick the vow above that comes closest, then replace exactly one abstract line with something only the two of you would understand — a place, a habit, the thing he does that you noticed first. That single detail is the line his mother will quote back to you at the reception.
Then read it aloud, standing, at full volume. Anything you stumble over is too written; cut it. If you would rather build one from scratch, see how to write wedding vows for him.