Customer Reviews

Complete Book of Wedding Vows

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I purchased this book without thumbing through it, because it was referenced on an Internet wedding site. Bad move. I cannot fathom anyone having a successful marriage who started out with the attitudes expressed in these vows. The traditional vows were beyond weird, the way they were stuck in the book haphazardly out of context; the nontraditional vows were not just sappy, but scary. They are designed for people who believe that the individual ceases to exist, once married, and one of them sounds like a stalker wrote it ("You cannot escape my love...If you try to hide, I will follow you..."). The worst section of all was designed for second marriages. I cannot believe that people would really pour out their brokenness and anguish over their past, at the altar on their wedding day. I feel compelled to warn couples who are approaching marriage for the first time: Stay away from anything that dishonors who you are as individual persons. Bring your whole self to your new mate and be joyous! (And find another book, please).

I found this book syrupy and narrow-viewed; some of the vows were just bizarre and histrionic. It was also dominantly Christian, which was not what I was looking for. I was disappointed. If you want a truly interesting and varied book of wedding vow suggestions, try "Alternative Weddings: An Essential Guide to Creating Your Own Ceremony". It's a lot more genuine and offers a much wider range of ideas.

Alternative Weddings: An Essential Guide for Creating Your Own Ceremony

I compared a few wedding vow books and although I thank all the authors for their efforts, the one I found the most useful, comprehensive, progressive in thinking, and with a generous mix of both spiritual and secular vows is "With These Words...I Thee Wed". Guess that's why it's been around the longest.

When my fiance and I wanted to marry, we searched to find meaningfull wedding vows that would tell a story to our guests of the incredible things that had happened to us, and how fate, luck and life brought us together and our love healed us. Being widowed and having two children, this book addressed our *VERY SPECIAL* wedding vow needs. I also read the rest of the vows for first time marriges, they were OUTSTANDING! I wish I would have had this book when I was 18.... and thrilled I have it now.. as I am 38.

I was appalled when I flipped through this book to find that just about every sample vow uses the words "God," "His," and "Holy Spirit." There is no room for other faiths, or for secularism, in this book - quite incomplete! I bought the book for the chapter on Second Marriages, which is my situation. Unfortunately, this book assumes that if you are getting married you must have been through a tragedy that left you near suicidal. The second marriage vows are sickeningly co-dependent, very dramatic ('you put an end to my torment, heal the wounds, dash the flames of punishment;' sheesh!), not joyous at all. How about those of us that had a healthy divorce, or moved on after widowhood? Also note: there are no guidelines for building your own vows, merely tons of example vows for you to plagiarize. I found this to be a completely useless book of wedding vows.

This book was extremely helpful to give me ideas for when I write my vows for my upcoming wedding. Having all of these examples has really helped my fiance and I write vows that are about who we are and help us express how we feel about each other. If you don't want to do something as simple as repeating "I do" after your priest or minister says it but aren't sure what you should say, which is what I was looking for, this book is a great resource. If you don't find something exact to use, you can use ideas from the different examples to write your own unique vows.

I was able to use this book to get some good ideas on what type of things my fiance and I would like to say on our wedding day, but this book just gave us ideas. We haven't decided what to say to each other yet, but we know that we will not use one of her examples word for word. It was a great starting tool, but now my fiance and I need to get a little creative and write our vows from the heart and not copy them from this book.

I disagree with the earlier review lambasting how Christian the book is. I was looking at several other books and I picked this one exactly because it didn't knock you over the head with Christianity. There is a whole chapter of vows that is totaly God free for those who don't feel like being super religious, but it also does have religious stuff if you want it. It's really one of the better ones out there in terms of being contemporary and not so stiff...

I bought this book because my husband and I are renewing our vows and I wanted some ideas. Then I discovered it makes an excellent "congratulations on your engagement gift". I love the personal stories. The vows can be coppied word for word or inspire you to write your own. There are ideas for 2nd marriages, older weddings, involving kids and renewel of vows at any anniversary.

I disagree with the earlier review lambasting how Christian the book is. I was looking at several other books and I picked this one exactly because it didn't knock you over the head with Christianity. There is a whole chapter of vows that is totaly God free for those who don't feel like being super religious, but it also does have religious stuff if you want it. It's really one of the better ones out there in terms of being contemporary and not so stiff...