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How to Write the Perfect Wedding Vows: by Katelyn Stanis

5 Steps to Completely Slaying Your Wedding Vows

 

You outsource things for your wedding like your makeup and floral design—would you ever outsource your vow writing to someone? Find out how we learned how to write the perfect wedding vows from a complete stranger!

We sat down to talk with Katelyn Stanis, a wedding vow and speech writing expert. She gave us the down low on all things custom vow writing.

Katelyn started her vow writing business, Wedding Words, in 2017 and has been penning couples vows from all over the world ever since. She also works with the maid of honor to write a speech that the bride will absolutely adore.

Here are her five tips to write the perfect wedding vows, personalized and all. Be sure to check out our recent episode with her to listen to all her juicy advice.

 

Step 1: Gathering material for your vows

Have a brainstorm by spending 20 minutes jotting down any memory or emotion that comes to mind. Then circle the concepts that you want to expand on for your vows.

You can also interview yourself by asking questions and recording your answers. Transcribe the audio and use this as the basis for your wedding vows.

 

Step 2: Identify themes

Once you’ve compiled some vow writing ideas and notes, start to identify themes.

What themes stand out in your notes? Do you talk a lot about your partner’s sense of humor or their thoughtfulness? Use these themes to anchor your vows and to move the vows forward from one story to the next.

 

Step 3: Write the first draft

Now that you have an idea of what you want to include in your vows, you can write the first draft. Be sure to start by addressing your fiancé.

Then communicate details about what you love about your partner and your relationship.

Next, detail out specific promises you want to make. Lastly, close with a love-filled sentence.

 

Step 4: Edit your vows

It’s time to edit your first draft. Start by removing any unnecessary words. If you can read a sentence and it has the same meaning with some of the words removed, go ahead and remove those words. You don’t want to include anything that doesn’t add meaning and impact to your vows.

Be sure to align with your fiancé on the sentiment and tone of your vows too. The last thing you want is for your vows to be full of sweet and sentimental thoughts and for your partner to focus on just having funny wedding vows.

 

Step 5: Practice reciting your vows

The final step is to practice reciting your wedding vows out loud. Video record yourself so you can watch yourself and make improvements or recite your vows in front of your maid of honor.

Be sure to also print your vows or use a vow booklet. Whatever you do—don’t read your vows from your phone!

 

Follow these five vow writing steps and you’ll be on your way to creating personalized and perfect wedding vows.

Written By: Katelyn Stanis

katelyn@weddingwords.us

www.weddingwords.us

IG: @weddingwords.us

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Cabo Wedding Planner

Yes, we frequent Cabo. No, we’re not dual citizens. Yes, Cabo may be one of our top five destination wedding locations. As we recap one of our most beautiful Cabo weddings, we’re about to show you why!

As destination wedding planners, we typically work hundreds of miles away from our couples and wedding locations but have been able to master systems to make this process as smooth as possible.  

A few months ago, we had a Father of Bride contact us, who was actually a guest at one of our previous weddings and desperately needed some help getting his daughter’s wedding in order.  They originally hired a company out in Cabo to handle their wedding planning and design and faced a couple of rough obstacles, which consumed a lot of their wedding planning time.

We were more than happy to step in and assist with re-doing a few things that had already been done but didn’t meet the standards of our couple, as well as wrapping up a lot of loose ends that needed tending too. This was a lot of hard work for our team but the perfect results were worth every second of It. We were able to really get to know the bride and her family and create a wedding setting and timeline for the night that fit their needs just perfectly.  

This Cabo wedding was nothing short of amazing.  With a pink, black and white color palette, we were able to design the wedding of our bride’s dreams.  Check out the images and vendors that helped make this happen below!

Vendors:

Design and Coordination: Yours Truly (@btseventmanagement)!
Photographer: @sararichardsonphoto
Venue: @thecapehotel
Flowers: @areteflorals
Rentals: @delcaboeventdesign

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A Phoenician Fairytale

That one bride….the one that is confident, stress-free, over the top positive, and obtains an incredible sense of style that you have to check in and ask “is this real life”….a wedding planners dream:) That is exactly the type of bride Christine was on her wedding day and through out her entire wedding planning process.  Christine decided to have her wedding at one of the best venues in town, The Phoenician, a five diamond rated resort that fits just perfectly into the elegance and class that she has.

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Wedding Design and Lighting

Whether you’re going for the perfect selfie, hanging out in a hot new club, or looking for a bright beautiful kitchen, one of the most important things is the lighting. You need it to accentuate all the right parts and create the perfect atmosphere for whatever you may need. And while some people may not consider it the most important thing for their wedding, lighting is definitely at the top of our list when it comes to designing each of our weddings.

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Fall at Foxboro Ranch

When it comes to Arizona weddings most people picture desert landscape with lots of cactus, but little do people know there are plenty of mountains, greenery and MAN are there some gorgeous fall colors to be seen! We kicked our wedding season off at Foxboro Ranch Estates in Munds Park with Kristen and Matt’s stunning  wedding filled with rich colors, primped pooches, and lots of pumpkins!

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A Dreamy Sedona Wedding

For those who may not know, one of the absolute best parts about being a wedding planner is making someone’s dream come true. So many women have had this fairytale of a day pictured in their heads from the time they were little girls, and we are the ones who get to make those dreams a reality. This BTS bride has known since the time she was little that she wanted to get married with the lush greenery and deep red rocks of Sedona as her background and MAN was it the perfect setting for this incredible wedding!

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Unplugging Your Ceremony

When it comes to guests with phones or cameras during ceremonies, we have pretty much seen it all. From the guest who watches the entire ceremony through their camera lens, to the best man who Snapchats literally everything, people are pretty attached to their devices. While some couples are totally okay with it, it doesn’t sit so well with everyone. After all, you have found the perfect photographer and you don’t want arms and phones obstructing the awesome photos they’ll be taking! So how do you ask your guests to keep their hands free of phones and cameras and focus on you during the ceremony? Easy!

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A Fun-Filled Phoenician Wedding

We received a phone call from a wonderful couple, who’s names are Lily and Brian, about eight months prior to their wedding date.  They lived in California and were planning a destination wedding in Scottsdale, AZ at the Phoenician Resort.  Instinctually, they knew they needed a wedding planner to alleviate some of their wedding planning stress that all couples get, especially when planning from afar.  I had a great time speaking with them and learning what they had in mind for their wedding.  They were extremely organized and had an incredibly detailed and accurate budget created right from the beginning.  As a wedding planner, I can not stress enough how important it is to create a budget or have your wedding planner create a budget for your wedding very early on.  This helps every couple stay on track and allows the bride and groom to make smart choices for what they really need/want on their wedding day.  This also helps determine guest count and how many people you are able to invite to your wedding with out going over budget.

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Interfaith Wedding: The Phoenician, Scottsdale Arizona

BTS Event Management_Scottsdale Wedding Planner_Phoenix Wedding Planner-The Phoenician-Val-96

I received a phone call around 3pm in the afternoon.  A lovely sounding lady was on the other end with a beautiful Russian accent.  She said, “I need your help!”  She was in her last weeks of med school and wanted to pull off a surprise wedding for her family.  Her parents, and her fiancé’s parents were coming to town for her graduation, which was the perfect time to surprise them with her wedding.  We were so excited and honored to be apart of such a special occasion but also a bit nervous as time was not on our side.  We had 3 weeks to pull this off.  As wedding planners, we can make just about anything happen but there was one aspect to this wedding that was going to make it just a bit more challenging.  The couple wanted to do an interfaith ceremony.  The bride is Roman Catholic and the groom is Jewish and they wanted both a priest and a rabbi to perform a ceremony.  The flowers, food, decor, and photographer I figured would be no problem, but finding a priest and a rabbi who would both participate in a wedding, under the circumstances that the couple would not be taking any prior classes or attending any meetings, was going to be the tricky part.  

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