To express your caring and commitment in your ceremony, you could write your own vows, or just include a special reading at your ceremony. For inspiration, you can turn to tradition, the classics, and the experts.

Whether you're inspired by high poetry or the color of your true love's eyes, personalizing your vows can add joy to your day.

A graduate student in English literature, Scott chose to read the e.e. cummings poem 'Somewhere I have travelled gladly beyond.'

The couple incorporated the Mexican tradition in which the groom gives the brides 13 arras, or coins. Blessed by the priest, they symbolize his promise to provide for her. They also had her godmother and her husband tie the lazo (rosary) around them.

Family members got up and read passages on marriage in Spanish, English and French, and the entire ceremony was explained in all three languages in the program.

"It was a very communal experience," Christiane adds.

Wedding planner Fran Bernard of Premiere Parties suggests also including stories and explanations in the program as a simple, meaningful form of personal expression. She encourages you to explain the relationship of the members of the bridal party to the bride and groom in the program as well.

A Traditional Base
As a base for writing your own vows, Interfaith minister James Covington gives you the nondenominational vows he has written and recommends two books, ‘Words for Your Wedding’ (Harper San Francisco) edited by David Glusker and Peter Misner, and '‘Wedding Readings’ (Viking) edited by Eleanor Munro.

"The couples who come to me usually don’t write their own vows, but they sometimes have me read vows and readings from other sources," says Covington. "Writing your own vows takes creativity, and a lot of people aren’t comfortable with that. They come to me asking for guidance."

Covington’s vows ask: "You ___, do you take ___ to be your wife? Will you love her, grow with her, listen to her when she is troubled, support and encourage her, be faithful to her, stand by her in times of sickness and health, and care for her as long as you both shall live?"

"If they are having an interfaith ceremony, they want to use neutral vows that are meaningful and spiritual, without being religious.

"People like the tenor of traditional vows," he explains, "and they don’t like to waver too much from that. I try to create a balance: something that is not typical, but is poetic and personal. They want to say something about marriage and commitment that people can relate to."

From the Writer
Various clients have asked wedding planner Carole Whitman to help write their vows.

"We’ve been working together for around nine months by the time they think about vows. I know them pretty well by then, and I know about their relationship to each other."

She recently wrote the vows for one Italian-Jewish marriage. Noticing that the groom was slightly possessive while the bride was free-spirited, she poetically addressed the equal importance of unity and independence in love.

"Always look at each other, but truly see each other," Carole wrote. "Touch each other and always be aware of the feelings ... Hear the words of each other, be sure to listen. Give to one another the glory of love. May this day be the beginning of a marriage with the promises of love, respect and peace forever."

Carole offers some advice for couples who plan to write parts of their ceremonies.

"Look inside yourself. Talk to each other and reflect on memories, feelings, and what you would like to give each other in the future."

If you get stuck, look to the classics for words you can quote or paraphrase, "but don’t make it too long," Carole cautions. "People are waiting to get to the cocktails!

"There are no rules to writing vows, as long as the language comes from your souls."

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Intercultural Meaning ... A Traditional Base | Ancient & Modern ... Renaissance Poets
Edmund Spenser vs Will Shakespeare

Ancient & Modern: Three Readings
Your choice of readings depends on your religious and spiritual sensibilities. Writer and speaker Gertrude Mueller Nelson, the co-author of ‘Sacred Threshold’ (Doubleday), suggests beginning with scripture or other spiritual writings, like your favorite poetry. "These should be moving, not just for you as a couple, but for everyone there."

She explains that in a Christian ceremony there is a place for an Old Testament reading, a reading from Apostles, and a reading from the New Testament.

Whether or not you are following the Christian ceremony, Nelson suggests using the same structure. "One very ancient wisdom from a person we all know — a classic wise person, if you will — and then a deep story from scripture or anything in good taste."

These will serve as a reminder how to be a responsible person in a community of people, and illustrate that your wedding is not just about being blessed — but about learning. "We don’t have many occasions where we can ‘marry’ two groups of friends and draw them to the same place, granting courage and strength to the community, and reminding everyone of the sacredness of being true to family lives and commitments.

"In fact, in Christian weddings the community is actually asked as part of the ceremony to be committed to the couple, which is a very beautiful thing."

The Renaissance Poets
When it comes to poetic inspiration, everyone, of course, thinks of Shakespeare.

"There are interesting themes to learn from Shakespeare’s day," says Anne Prescott, professor of Renaissance studies at Columbia University and Barnard College.

"They didn’t think you could make up your own ceremony in the church.

"But in Shakespeare’s day, you didn’t need a church to be legally married. If you said in front of a witness ‘I marry you,’ and the other person said, ‘I marry you’ — both in the present tense, that was important — and then you slept together, you were married in the eyes of the law."

This agitated a lot of people, particularly in Shakespeare’s day, when there was an increasing battle for power over marriage by parents and the government.

"In some ways ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is based upon this old tension between a ‘do-it-yourself in the eyes of God’ typ of marriage, and a more ‘modern’ marriage, where you absolutely have to have your parents’ consent."

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Intercultural Meaning ... A Traditional Base | Ancient & Modern ... Renaissance Poets
Edmund Spenser vs Will Shakespeare

Edmund Spenser vs. Will Shakespeare
Professor Prescott’s favorite romantic poem is not a Shakespearian sonnet, but ‘Epithalamion’ by Edmund Spenser. "It is a brilliant poem, very moving and loving. There are 24 stanzas and it goes through the wedding day, one stanza for each hour.

"Spenser was trying to show that marriage is the answer to mortality. We all die, but we can get married, have children, and live on in that way."

In one of his poems Spenser wrote, "So let us love, dear love, like as we ought/ Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught."

"What I love about that poem is that before Spenser, most poets felt that one could love either the lady or love God. Spenser does both, and that’s what makes him so rare."

The place where marriage comes to matter most in Renaissance works is in plays like 'Romeo and Juliet' or in 'Measure for Measure,' where a young couple has promised each other and then slept together, but they either haven’t gone to church or they don’t have their parents’ permission.

"I think Shakespeare’s prime contribution to marriage are the images he gives of love and commitment."

She also points out a passage in Julius Caesar, when Brutus says to his wife, "You are my true and honorable wife, as dear to me as the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart."

"So Shakespeare had a wonderful idea of the value and beauty of married love, in ways that you don’t find in too much of the earlier poetry."

Dr. Prescott has friends who wrote their own vows. "One day they said, ‘We couldn’t remember what we promised each other.’ And my husband said that the advantage of using the prayer book service is being able to look it up and find out what you said.

"So," adds the professor in a final word, "if you are going to write your own vows, save them somewhere!"