Why Catholics Don’t Write Their Own Wedding Vows

Photography from Fenix Photography and Design, a Virginia based Catholic wedding photographer

Everyone loves to customize their wedding! We express our relationship and its beautiful complexities through choosing our own colors, our own fonts, our own social media hashtags, creative favors, different desserts, and a thousand other tiny choices that introduce your marriage to the world. But during a Catholic wedding mass, can you continue your streak of creativity by with a unique set of vows written just for one another?

The answer is no, but that’s actually a beautiful thing! Here’s why Catholics don’t write their own wedding vows.

A Catholic wedding ceremony isn’t just a legal and social contract; it’s a sacrament, a holy and heavenly celebration that heaps grace upon its recipients! And while the sacrament belongs to the couple as participants, it also belongs to The Church. The sacrament of marriage has been gifted to us by God, and it’s up to him to define how it is created, through his mouthpiece, the clergy. So we use the vows provided to us within the rubrics of the Catholic wedding ceremony.

The good news is that this is actually gives you the opportunity to participate in an incredibly touching experience. The vows that you repeat at your wedding ceremony are the same vows that have been said by millions of couples in hundreds of languages! You are participating in a rite that is deeper and larger than any of us individually, and compounding on a tradition that came before you and will exist long after you!

Luckily, you can still take part in the tradition of Catholic wedding vows and still express your love for each other in your own words. Here are some ways to make it happen.

1. Write letters to each other and read them before your ceremony, either together or privately.

2. Give toasts to each other! And here’s a tip- if you do this at the rehearsal dinner, it will have an intimate feel and not detract from the speaking time of other speeches at your wedding reception.

3. If you have videography, ask to do a VoiceOver for your wedding video (look here for a national list of Catholic videographers who can help with that!)

4. Take a date night close to your wedding and dedicate conversation especially to what you like about each other and the commitments you’re making for your life together

Many people are confused about why Catholics don’t write their own wedding vows, but once they comprehend the beauty of partaking in the sacrament, they are able to embrace our gorgeous traditions and customize their wedding in other ways!

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