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Over our months of planning, we’ve been periodically popping into to meet with the priest who will be officiating our ceremony. He’s relatively new to my hometown parish, so there’s a lot of foreign territory to cover. Everyone approaches weddings a little differently, and everyone has their own personality quirks, so I was eager to see how he would handle us and our wedding.
Pretty quickly into the exploratory process, he dropped a total bomb on us (or, at least, on me). He turned to us and simply stated, “I’m going to have you two memorize your vows, since you’re marrying each other. I’m not marrying you. The only people saying the words should be you two.”
And here was my reaction.
Image via Stealthy Like a Continent
Um, yeah.
Suffice it to say I have been silently freaking out over this for the past few months. A good number of people in my life have articulated that saying the vows is the most poignant, dramatic, and challenging part of the ceremony. The entire purpose of the officiant feeding you your lines one chunk at a time is because it’s almost unreasonable to ask someone to be able to handle more than a handful of words at once! There’s so much focus and energy and love that there’s no stamina left over for actual memory.
I’m kind of terrified that I’ll forget the words. Or I’ll get halfway through, trip over a phrase, and then get so flustered that I’ll need to start all over again. Or that I’ll blaze through them at warp speed, which I tend to do in normal conversation, let alone during public displays of conversation. I mean, think back on how much gossip and drama got stirred up when President Obama’s Oath of Office got all twisted about! Important words matter! They aren’t meant to be screwed up!
I guess my sole option is to read them over and over again until they’re really deeply ingrained. Mind you, they aren’t terribly long, and they are quite traditional. The bar is set pretty low, which makes it all the more embarrassing should you take a tumble on it.
Image via Damon Day & Associates
Any other brides out there memorize their vows and have success with it? Please tell me this is possible!
I had to memorize this massive creed for my sorority initiation in college & one of my sisters taught me a trick. Memorize no more than 3 lines at a time. When you feel like you have them down comfortably, memorize the next 2 or 3. Once you have those down then you go back and combine them. Say them together over & over until you have that whole piece memorized. Repeat these steps as neccessary.
My husband and I didn’t want our pastor to feed us the lines a little at a time, but I was too scared to try to say them by memory, so we just had a little notecard with the vows that the pastor handed to each of us just before we said the vows. It worked really well for us. Maybe you could ask your officiant if he would mind this?
My grandparents had to memorize their vows for the same reason. My parents memorized theirs too, and the advice my mom gave to me was to do one line per week, and get it down pat that way.
Although we strove to memorize our vows, we definitely kept them on the short side to increase our chances, and our officiant also kept a copy of them in his book. That way we had a back-up in case our minds went blank! The reassurance that we could peek if we wanted to really helped relieve some of the pressure.
We had our officiant hand us a notecard with our vows on it. We had personalized vows but there’s no way I could have memorized them.
I didn’t even pretend like I was going to memorize our vows. I was nervous enough as it was without having to worry about forgetting my line! We had our pastor feed us them, which really wasn’t bad, and then we had our personal, written vows on a notecard that we used for reference. I’d definitely recommend having a back-up notecard on hand, if not just for the comfort of mind that you can peek if you need to.
Good luck with the memorization! Miss Smashville suggested a very good technique.
We opted to memorize then because we didn’t like the idea of someone else leading our ceremony. However, we are definately going to have them written out and have the person marrying us hold them so we can peak down if we need. You will do great!
I definitely think that having your vows on you on a notecard or something just in case you blank is a really good idea. As is memorizing small sections at a time. Look at what you’re memorizing, read it through a couple of times, and then put it down. Then out loud summarize what you wrote down. See what parts of the whole you remember. If you are ever in a tight spot and you can’t remember the EXACT wording that’s okay…at least you know the overall idea you are trying to convey. Then focus on exact memorization. I’m a teacher, and this is what I tell my high school theatre and speech kids to do:)
I really love the sentiment behind this idea, but I would be terrified of trying to remember them all. I think a small notecard is a great idea, but if you’re set on trying to do them from memory I’ve found that writing (in addition to memorizing) really helps my retention.
I’m quite nervous about this part of the ceremony as well!!
I never paid attention to it, but that makes sense! I knida like the idea now of just saying our own vows. I don’t think that will go over so well with the Mr.. He’s not much of a speaker to start with, much less in front of an audience.
I never paid attention to it, but that makes sense! I kinda like the idea now of just saying our own vows. I don’t think that will go over so well with the Mr.. He’s not much of a speaker to start with, much less in front of an audience.
Yes Miss Smashville has a very good technique! Hah, if our officiant makes us try to memorize our vows, I’m going to freak. But! If you mess them up, odds are people will laugh and you’ll have a cute memory. So it’s like a win win (I hope that makes you feel better…… )
we chose to memorize ours but we got married in the catholic church where you really only have 2 options for vows - they were short, simple, sweet and easy to remember, though i had to give my husband a little push at the alter - he almost forgot! i still remember them 
My mister has short-term memory problems due to his accident, so likely will have a cue card but I really like the philosophy of your officiant; we should be saying the vows.
I think it’s totally possible! Miss Smashville has a good idea. Our officiant read ours to us and we just repeated, and that suited me just fine though!
Girl, write ‘em down! We just had ours on a little piece of paper which our officiant handed to us when it was time to read them. I am a firm believer in minimizing the number of things that can give you stress/anxiety surrounding your wedding. You shouldn’t feel unnecessarily stressed about getting stage fright & forgetting your “lines”!
Funny… our officiant said the exact opposite when we first met him! He said he doesn’t recommend writing our own vows and memorizing them, because it’s hard to do and what’s the point! I was fine with that Do whatever makes you happy and at ease.
I think having them somewhere on a note card will relieve a lot of your anxiety and more than likely, you won’t even need to consult the note card. I always find that if you have a safety net (knowing the cards are accessible somewhere), you won’t stress about it, which makes you a lot more likely to remember the lines.
By the way, absolutely LOVE the last picture you included in your post - hilarious!
Memorizing the vows would stress me out, too! I love the way you concluded the post - that photo made me laugh out loud
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Mrs. Snow Cone, Pittsburgh/Johnstown, PA Age and Occupation: 23, Public Health Graduate Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Engineer Engagement Date: April 9, 2010 Wedding Date: August 2011 Venue: OMOS Church ceremony/Sunnehanna Country Club reception About Me: I’m one of the lucky ones---I met my future husband at the ripe old age of 13, started dating him as a mature woman of 15, and have been enjoying the ride ever since. Here we are, 8 years later, living in Pittsburgh, planning a "homestination" wedding in the place our school romance began---Johnstown, PA. I thrive on talking a mile a minute, eating my weight in chocolate, and internet shopping. I love a lengthy to-do list almost as much as I love a healthy amount of chaos in my life. Mr. Snow Cone and I watch countless episodes of Friends and The West Wing on repeat, root for rival college sports teams, and make each other laugh each and every day. We’re putting together a small-town wedding with a big personality and a classically modern (or modernly classic?) look for 250 of our closest family and friends. It’s been 8+ years in the making, and sometimes I still can’t believe I’m finally getting to marry my high school sweetheart!
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