Every idea below is a finished vow rather than a suggestion, so you can hear how it actually sounds before you commit to the format. Take one whole, or take the shape and put your own details in it.
Unusual format · 50 seconds
Anyone can promise you the good days. So here is what I promise you at three in the morning: I will get up. I will find out what is wrong before I decide whether it is reasonable. I will not sigh.
And in the daylight I promise the rest of it — honesty, patience, and someone who is genuinely glad you exist. Both halves, for the rest of my life.
Unusual format · 40 seconds each
First: I promise to keep asking how you are and waiting for the real answer. I promise to be honest before it is comfortable. And whatever happens, whoever we turn into: I will find you.
Second: I promise to be steady when you cannot be. I promise to tell you the truth when it costs me something. And whatever happens, whoever we turn into: I will find you.
Unusual format · 45 seconds
I take you to be my [wife / husband], and I promise you the ordinary things — honesty, patience, attention, my share of the work.
And I promise you one more. Every ten years, on this date, we write these again. Not because today does not count, but because I want to keep making this decision on purpose rather than by default. Everyone here is a witness to that part too.
Want one assembled around your own promises? Use the vow builder — pick a tone, answer four questions, get a draft you can edit.
Plain contemporary language, no archaic clauses, concrete daily behaviour instead of abstractions.
Modern · 50 seconds
I am not going to promise you forever, because forever is easy to say in a room like this one. I am going to promise you Tuesdays.
I will listen when you are talking, including the parts I have heard before. I will say the difficult thing early instead of letting it rot. I will do my half without being thanked for it. And I will keep choosing this, on purpose, on the days when choosing is work.
Modern · 45 seconds
I take you as my partner, and I mean the word literally. Every decision we make gets made twice — once by you and once by me — and neither of us gets to outrank the other because of how the day looked or what anybody expected.
I promise you an equal life. I promise you my honesty, my patience and my whole attention. From today, for as long as I have.
Modern · 50 seconds
I am not going to promise never to hurt you. I will, at some point, without meaning to, and so will you.
What I promise is what happens next. I will notice. I will say sorry properly, without the word “but” in it. I will change the thing rather than explain it. That is the vow, and I think it is the only one that survives contact with a real marriage.
Modern · 45 seconds
Nothing changes tomorrow. Same flat, same routine, same argument about the [thing]. That is rather the point.
What changes is that I have said it out loud, in front of everyone we love, and it can no longer be taken back. I promise you honesty, patience, and a person who keeps turning up. I take you as my [wife / husband].
Structures most guests will not have heard before. Each one is written out whole, because the format only works if the sentences underneath it are good.
Unusual format · 55 seconds
[Name] —
I have started this four times. Every version says the same thing badly, so here it is plainly: you are the person I want to tell things to. Good news, bad news, small news that is not news at all.
I promise to keep being that for you. I promise to be honest, to be kind, and to stay. That is all of it. That is the letter.
Reads as though it was written for one person and overheard by everyone else, which is exactly the effect you want.
Unusual format · 50 seconds
[Date]: we met, and I did not think anything of it. [Date]: I did. [Date]: the hard one, the one neither of us talks about, when you [what they did].
Today: this. And every date after it, whatever it turns out to hold — I will be standing where I am standing now. I promise you that, and I promise you my honesty and my patience for all of them.
Unusual format · 30 seconds each
First: Will you tell me the truth, even when it is inconvenient?
Second: I will. Will you stay in the room when it is hard?
First: I will. Will you keep choosing this on the ordinary days?
Second: I will. And I will keep asking you these questions for the rest of our lives.
Unusual format · 25 seconds aloud
The things I want to promise you are mostly not for two hundred people. So publicly, and for the record: I take you as my [wife / husband], I will be honest with you, and I will not leave.
The rest is written down, it is longer, and it is yours to read tonight when the house is quiet.
Say the short public half at the ceremony and hand over the written private half afterwards. Couples who do this almost always say the private one is the part they kept.
Unusual format · 45 seconds
I am not making these promises to you alone. I am making them to [name], who told me not to mess this up. To [name], who has watched us since the beginning. To everyone in this room.
I promise honesty, patience and my whole attention. And I am asking all of you to hold me to it, out loud, on the days I need reminding.
Unusual format · 40 seconds
I will stay. When it is easy, I will stay. When it is dull — and it will be dull, some years — I will stay. When one of us is ill and the other is frightened, I will stay.
That is the only promise I trust myself to make, so I am making it four times and meaning it every time. I take you as my [wife / husband].
For blended families and second marriages. Ask the children beforehand, keep it short, and never make a promise about their other parent.
Family · 40 seconds
[Child], [child] — I have promises for you as well, and they are shorter, so listen.
I will not try to be someone you already have. I will be here, I will be on your side, and I will listen when you would rather I did not talk. That is what I am promising, and I will still be promising it when you are thirty.
Say the children's names slowly and look at them, not at the guests. Best placed immediately after the main vow, not before it.
Family · 40 seconds
I am not only marrying you. I am marrying [tradition], [family habit], and unlimited future [family event], which I accept freely and with only mild concern.
I promise to take all of it seriously, because it made you, and you are the best argument for it I have ever seen. I take you as my [wife / husband], and I take the rest of them too.
Ordinary structure, unusual content. These are the vows people quote back to you, and they are the easiest kind to write once you stop reaching for abstractions.
Original · 45 seconds
I promise to learn [their subject] well enough to have an opinion you can argue with. I promise to keep the [object] even when we move. I promise that when you are telling a story I have heard, I will let you tell it.
And I promise the large ones underneath — honesty, patience, and staying. All of it, for all of it.
Original · 45 seconds
I promise to protect three things: your sleep, your work, and your friendships. Everything else in a marriage can be negotiated, and those three are what people quietly lose.
I will guard them as though they were mine, because from today they are. I take you as my [wife / husband].
Original · 45 seconds
We are going to argue. We are good at it, and we are going to get better, which is not entirely a compliment.
So I promise this: I will not go quiet on you. I will not bring up something from four years ago. I will not win in a way that costs you something. And I will come back afterwards, every time.
Original · 50 seconds
Some of you know what the last [number] years looked like. I do not need to describe it. What I want on the record is that [name] never once made me feel like a burden.
So this is not a promise about the good times. It is a promise about the other kind, and it is simple: whatever comes next, you will not carry it alone. Not once. Not for a day.
Unusual format, ordinary language. The vows that go wrong in the reach for originality are the ones that borrow poetry — a plain sentence about your partner’s actual habits will always be more original than a beautiful one about love in general, because only one of them has ever been said before.
Then read it aloud, standing, at full volume. If a format feels awkward in your mouth, it will feel worse in front of two hundred people — take the sentences and put them in a plainer frame. The vow templates hold the standard shapes, and how to write your own wedding vows has the longer method.