Anyone write own Vows or (Family) Sand Ceremony

[sarahe125]

My fiancé and I are getting married at the WP on 9/16/11, in only 10 days!!! We leave for WDW in 6. This is our second marriage and we each have a child... my son is 4 and Matt's daughter is 7. We are doing a sand ceremony, amongst other things, to incorporate our amazing kiddos into the ceremony.

Up until now we have said we are going to use "traditional vows." However, as the time nears I feel something pulling at me a bit as I would maybe like our vows and ceremony to be a bit more personal.

Has anyone written their own vows and/or family sand ceremony? If so, how did you go about it? Are you willing to share? I'm hitting a brick wall!

Thanks so much!

 

[kharmagirl]

I am writing the whole ceremony. Mine is in 18 days and I'm having the hardest time with the vows as well. We keep going back and forth with saying something very personal or repeating the same thing. I do know it will be more than just "promise to love, honor, and cherish".

I did a lot of research and a few of the places I kept coming back to were:
http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/21660/share-your-ceremony-script
http://www.fishcat.com/wedding/ceremony/words.html
http://www.peoniesandpolaroids.com/2008/11/wedding-ceremony-part-1.html
http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/09/24/write-your-own-wedding-ceremony/?comment-page=2#comments

Good luck!

 

[lurkyloo]

Yes! This was very important to us also but, boy, was it tough to do when we actually sat down and tried. Eventually we ended up using a combination of techniques on this site to create a sort of outline that goes like this:

Opening: I, _______, take/choose you, _______, to be/as my______.

Middle: Describe what you love about your partner and what you two will accomplish together.

Pledge: What you promise to do for your partner.

The key is to be sincere, specific, and concise. I had to get over the fact that I was not going to come up with something stunningly original that had never been said before in the history of marriage and instead just say something completely heartfelt.

 

[Raspberry Bubbles]

Yes, we did. We wrote them the night before and said what was in our hearts. It really made us think about what we meant to each other.

 

[sarahe125]

Thank you very much to each of you for sharing your thoughts, points of references, ideas, etc. I talked with my finace last night and he said he was willing to give it a shot so I think we are going to go for it. When I shared with him some places that gave ideas to start he looked relieved! Hopefully neither of us will have writers block when we tackle this over the next few days!

 

[Ember]

We wrote our whole ceremony, start to finish. I've been to so many weddings where the officiant does their own thing, and it's not meaningful to the couple. As a personal thing, I really hate the whole concept of "two becoming one." I think it's silly, and in a way, disrespectful. Two people do not become one, they choose every day to be together. *shrug* Anyway, it was things like that that made us write our own. As for the actual vows this is what we promised:

I, Ember, take you, Mr. Ember / to be my husband / from this time onward. / To join with you / and to share all that is to come. / to be faithful and honest / to give and to receive / to speak and to listen / to inspire and to respond. / A commitment made in love / kept in faith / and eternally new.

Our ceremony was about two and half pages long, and took maybe 15 minutes in total.

 

[lurkyloo]

I think that's an important point that many couples don't realize—you can customize the whole ceremony. Like you, Ember, I had issues with elements of the traditional ceremony and worked with our officiant to come up with one that better reflected me and DH. We were fortunate enough to be working with an officiant we had known for years, but I know that many of the officiants on Disney's list are flexible with this too.