Hi, everyone. One last question of the day (until my next QOTD): did you write your own vows? I know in some traditions there is not a lot of space for this practice, so if you did it, why? If you decided not to, why not? L and I did not write our own vows because it is not a very common practice in Jewish ceremonies. (In fact, neither of us ever said the words "I do," reciting the traditional Hebrew wedding declarations instead.)
So, guys, were you nervous about writing your own vows? How did it come off? Did you memorize them, read them, or make them up on the spot?
Thanks for your help. Remember to put your hometown along with your first name.
I'm Jewish and my bride is Christian (and neither one of us are at all serious about our religions), so we more or less incorporated elements from both traditions into our ceremony. For the vows themselves, we basically took several different versions of the vows in the Book of Common Prayer and chose one turn of phrase we liked from here, one from there. (The ceremony as a whole ended up being more Christian than Jewish, mostly because her family is more devout and mine is more secular.)
Posted by: David. (Macon GA) at June 10, 2005 09:03 AMLike David, we had a Jewish groom and a Christian bride, and we also chose to incorporate elements of both faiths. Additionally, there were parts of our ceremony that were not religious in nature, and that included our vows. We each wrote our own vows, and did not discuss them at all until we read them to each other (no memorization here!). As it turns out, we both tended to include a little something about how and why we fell in love; a bit of a take on the "love, honor, and cherish" tradition; and also some more specific personal promises (e.g., I would always support his playing the clarinet, he would attempt to evoke a laugh out of me - what he refers to as my "joyous cackle" - as often as possible, etc.).
Posted by: Michaela (Chicago) at June 13, 2005 11:47 AM