Usually the most intimate and tear jerking part of the wedding ceremony, your marriage vows are the sentimental and legally binding promises you will make to your future spouse on your wedding day. How liberal you can be with the format and content of these vows will depend on the type of wedding and its context.
If you are having a separate civil service and symbolic wedding, you will find that you can pretty much write your own vows based on your beliefs about what marriage really means to you both for the symbolic ceremony, while the legal marriage will require certain compulsory promises to be covered. For example, if choose a destination wedding in Mexico and wish to have a legally binding service, there are particular points that must be covered to make the marriage legal. However, if your wedding is purely symbolic, you are free to change the wedding vows as you please.
Couples with a strong religious faith will find that a traditional format will need to be followed in accordance with your particular religion. For example, if you are getting married in a Catholic church or Islamic mosque, then the traditional vows stipulated by those religions must be used. However, in most circumstances, if couples wish to add their own vows in addition to the compulsory format, most religious venues are accommodating.
Writing your own wedding vows can be a wonderful exercise that both helps to clarify what marriage really means for the couple to be married as well as to form a closer bond and deeper communication. In identifying the promises you will make to one another on your wedding day, a couple go into their marriage fully aware of the journey that is before them. Nevertheless, many people opt for the more conventional vows, preferring to follow a proven tradition rather than reinvent the wheel.
