Alternate Vows

These are sample vows that can be added to any ceremony.

Traditional

With this understanding, do you Groom, take Bride to be your beloved wife?
Do you promise to be a tender, faithful husband?
Do you promise to love, honor, and cherish her, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, for as long as you both shall live?

With this understanding, do you Bride, take Groom to be your beloved husband?
Do you promise to be a tender, faithful wife?
Do you promise to love, honor, and cherish him, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, for as long as you both shall live?

Modern

Groom and Bride, the vows that you make will be witnessed here today. Please repeat after me:

I take you, Bride, to be my wife, lover and best friend and these things I promise to you: I will be faithful to you and honest with you,
I will respect, trust, help and care for you,
I will share my life with you,
I will share with you everything that is to come throughout the rest of our lives together.

I take you, Groom, to be my husband, lover and best friend and these things I promise to you: I will be faithful to you and honest with you,
I will respect, trust, help and care for you,
I will share my life with you,
I will share with you everything that is to come throughout the rest of our lives together.

Best Friends

Groom, would you please repeat after me:

I take you _______ to be my wife. I give to you my friendship and my heart. Everyday, I offer a hand to hold, a friend to laugh with and arms to embrace you. For, wherever life takes me, I want you by my side. In you, my heart has found a home.

Bride, would you please repeat after me:

I take you _______ to be my husband. I give to you my friendship and my heart. Everyday, I offer a hand to hold, a friend to laugh with and arms to embrace you. For, wherever life takes me, I want you by my side. In you, my heart has found a home.

Festive Alternative

(Bride and Groom each repeat:)

Before our friends and those so special to us here, on this wonderful day of gladness and good fortune, I ______ take you _______ as my wife/husband, in friendship and in love, in strength and weakness, to share the good times and misfortune, in achievement and failure, to celebrate life with you forevermore.

Joining of Hands

As Bride and Groom are bound together hand in hand today, so too are their hearts bound to one another. It is said that the hand is moved by the heart’s desire. When we make an oath, we raise our hands as a gesture of our pledge. So, the vows expressed today, hand in hand are bind Bride and Groom.

Please TOGETHER repeat after me:

I take your hand in mine as a symbol of my vow:
My hand will dry your tears, in laughter and in sorrow
My hands will hold your heart, your secrets and your dreams
These hands will love you with a passion never ceasing
These hands will pick you up when you fall,
And bring you back to my arms when you need comfort
Our hands, Together, will build a life, a home and a family.
Our hands will find the strength to move mountains
For wherever you go, from this day forward,
My hands and my heart will be with you.

Irish Anam Cara Vows

On this blessed day, we celebrate the celtic spirit of the anam cara. Anam cara is translated from the Gaelic as “soul friend.” By entering into a partnership with your anam cara, you are joined in an ancient and eternal way with this person whom you cherish. In everyone’s life there is a soul mate whose love embraces us. The ring is a symbol of that loving embrace. Bride and Groom will now exchange their vows and accept their rings.

(Place ring on Bride’s finger)

Today I recognize you, my anam cara
And ask that you become a part of me, in sacred kinship.
With you I will share my innermost self, my mind and my heart.
With you I have lost all fear and have found the greatest courage.
I have learned to love and let myself be loved.
With you, I have found a rhythm of grace and gracefulness.
Love has reawakened in my life, a rebirth; a new beginning.
With you my anam cara,
I am understood,
I am home.

Additional Readings