What’s New in Christian Wedding Vows?

If you are planning to get married someday within the Church of England, you’ll be interested to hear that the church is currently undertaking a major overhaul of the marriage preparation that it offers to engaged couples.

The reason for the change is to better reflect what the Church of England has discovered to be the number one priority for engaged couples – the wedding vows.

According to a survey of 411 engaged couples and 176 clergy, engaged couples regard their vows as more central to their wedding planning than any other aspect. In addition, the survey revealed that 30 per cent of couples would like a single-session course about marriage prior to the wedding, and 44 per cent of respondents agreed that the church should offer marriage support after the wedding as well as before.

It’s believed that the demand for support is so high because of today’s trend to divorce, even within Christian couples.

‘The Church is in a unique position,’ says a Church of England spokesman. ‘In its marriage preparation, it offers something couples cannot get in a hotel or stately home, and tries to demonstrate its care about not just the big day, but all the days afterwards.’

The Church of England has responded to the survey results by announcing plans to try newly-devised single-session marriage preparation courses. The single session will focus on the wedding service and the vows to be exchanged by the couple.

An example of the steps that will be followed by engaged couples when creating their wedding vows will include:

• Tackling the logistics
  • Will you and your fiancé each write your own vows, or will you write them together? If you write them separately, will you show them to one another before the ceremony?
  • Have you considered how long you’d like your vows to be? Between one and two minutes each is acceptable.
• Creating your outline
  • Make a timeline of your relationship in the past, present and future. Then make a list of the promises which you’d like to make to one other. Using this technique, you’ll end up with an outline such as:
    • Timeline: Beliefs about love before meeting partner / First time we met / Most difficult moment in relationship / Hopes for near future / Hopes for distant future.
    • Promises: To always treasure and appreciate partner / To always support and comfort partner / To never forget current feeling standing before partner / To treasure growing old together.
• Writing the vows
  • Decide who will say which parts and create an order for the dialogue.
  • Next, fill in the outline with the detail of what you’d like to say.

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