Your Guide to Renewing Your Vows
Why only get married once? Recommit your love to your spouse by renewing your vows.
“Vow renewals are often planned during milestone anniversaries, but you don’t have to wait until your 10, 20 or even 50 year anniversary to say “I do” again.”
Thinking of renewing your vows? Or do you often think back to your wedding day and wish you could do it all over again?
Vow renewals are often planned during milestone anniversaries, but you don’t have to wait until your 10, 20 or even 50 year anniversary to say “I do” again.
In fact, the pandemic has made vow renewals or sequel weddings more popular than ever. Couples who planned their weddings in 2020 or even 2021 were forced to either cancel, postpone or significantly scale back. Virtual and micro weddings became the trend for months.
Now many of those couples are scheduling the nuptials, or vow renewals, of their dreams.
Modern day vow renewals.
Whether it’s the pandemic, financial reasons or something else — many couples are planning their receptions months or even years after officially saying “I do” — when it’s more convenient for them. Some are even pulling out all the stops and holding a reception on their first wedding anniversary.
If you’re choosing to have another wedding after legally being married, consider reading your original vows to share with guests who weren’t there for your first wedding or write new vows. If you’re holding a much bigger event than your first wedding, include traditions that you may not have been able to celebrate with friends and familyp — like your first dance, cake cutting and a bouquet toss.
Traditional vow renewals.
A vow renewal is a beautiful, touching way for you and your spouse to simply pledge your love to one another once again. Many couples renew their vows on big anniversaries or after major life events that bring them closer together. You can also plan a vow renewal if your wedding went by too fast or not as planned and you want a “redo.”
Officiating your vow renewal.
Since you’re already legally married, it’s not necessary to have an ordained minister, priest or rabbi to officiate your wedding. However, you will need a ceremony script. An experienced officiant will know exactly how to perform a vow renewal. If you decide to have a friend or relative lead the ceremony, the internet is filled with vow renewal scripts that you can use. Research, do your homework and practice if you go this route.
Plan your vow renewal.
Just like a wedding — you’ll want to pick a venue (or location, like a park, beach or your favorite place to go as a couple), send out invitations and choose your wedding attire. Because this isn’t your official wedding day — it’s your choice to go all out as if it’s the first time you’re walking down the aisle or scale down. There are no rules for vow renewals. You get to choose what to wear, whether it’ll be a short ceremony, if you’ll include a reception with food or just have a cocktail hour. We’ve also seen some couples plan out an entire wedding.
Writing your vow renewals.
You may choose to read your original vows or write completely different promises to one another. It’s likely some time has passed since you first said “I do,” which means you’ve gone ups and downs and trials and tribulations as a couple. Writing new vows or adding to your original vows is a touching way to acknowledge the life you’ve built together and continued love. If you need help or guidance writing your vows, Vows & Forever offers vow writing services.
What we love about vow renewals is that for many couples, their kids or even grandchildren, can participate or at least witness the celebration of love. Typically when couples get married, they’ve just started their families or haven’t started at all.
Renewing your vows is a reminder to your spouse why you chose them as your life partner. We toast to that!
Written By Vows & Forever Founder and Veteran Journalist Maria Cid. V&F is a wedding vows & speech writing service that also specializes in speech coaching and wedding timeline coordination.
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