You may not have the soul of a poet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t write or compile meaningful vows You may not have the soul of a poet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t write or compile meaningful vows that express just how you feel about your bride.

“The vows a man and woman make to each other on their wedding day provide an opportunity for each to honor the other's soul and spiritual presence,” says Ashville, N.C.-based Lisa Sarasohn, an award-winning poet and essayist.

Speechwriter Susan Young says in helping couples write their vows, she has them  “focus on their real-life experiences and looking into their own hearts and worlds,” and adds that invariably, these vows “always go over so much better when they are authentic and genuine.”

Young suggests that in composing vows, couples should consider “how they were before they met their match, and how they have grown and learned from the relationship, [and] what they now bring as a partner and hopes for each other as a couple.”

While it may be a stereotype that men have a hard time expressing themselves while women are ponderous, Young finds that men really aren’t comfortably being “wordsmiths” and putting their feelings into specific words, while women “tend to go too long.”

Poet and Justice of the Peace George B. Jack concurs, “it’s the groom who tells me he needs more help than the bride.”

If you choose to use the words of a famous poet, there are ways of presenting the words in your own way. Sarasohn suggests that the bride may read, or recite from memory, some lines, followed by the groom doing the same, and then “choose a few lines to repeat as a sort of chorus to affirm their most significant intentions.”

Jack disagrees, saying that this style of vow recitation can be more like “public speaking” and that couples who are typically nervous and often barely want to say more than “I do.”

You don’t need to stick to one poem, either, you can combine your favorites.

Jack has actually compiled a collection of vows for couples he’s scheduled to marry, which they can use for inspiration or as written.

Jack says he also directs couples to research on the internet, which features sites “ranging from nationally know matrimony resource “cyber-salons” like theknot.com to sites like wedding-vows.org; allweddingideas.com; elegantvows.com; and myweddingvows.com; [which] offer a variety of vows written in different styles for different kinds of wedding ceremonies.”

The New Hampshire-based Jack scoffs at sites or services that will write your vows for you, adding, “it’s part of the wedding officiant’s job to help with vow writing or selection if at all possible – the feeling has to come from within, and paying for a ‘custom’ vow that’s probably been recycled a thousand times is not as rewarding as writing or finding words from one’s own heart.”

Jack wholeheartedly recommends couples “work from options which apply especially to them, their wedding in general. There are limitless possibilities for them to choose from in composing their vows.”

In the end, he emphasizes, a couple’s vows should “express their devotion and love to each other in the words they have chosen for themselves.”