Religion Free Wedding Vows

With the country being a melting pot of races, ethnicities, and religions, mixed religion marriages are on the rise. If you are having a mixed religion marriage, you are likely struggling with many aspects of your wedding ceremony – including your vows. To help make the wedding smoother, you might want to consider having nondenominational or religion free wedding vows. Nondenominational or religion free wedding vows either completely eliminate reference to a higher power or carefully choose the how the reference to a higher power is made.

Reasons for Nondenominational or Religion Free Wedding Vows

If you have decided to marry someone who is of a different religion, you have likely discussed these differences in-depth. Subjects such as how you will raise your children and how you will celebrate holidays are two areas to discuss. In addition, you have to decide what kind of wedding ceremony to have. With religion being important and personal to both of you, you certainly don’t want to sell one religion short. Having a ceremony and vows dedicated to just one of your religions definitely results in shortchanging one religion.

The answer to this problem is nondenominational or religion free wedding vows. By making a few subtle changes in traditional wedding vows or by writing your own, you can easily tweak them so they do not focus on just one religion. Or, you can eliminate the religious context altogether and have vows that focus on your love for one another instead.

Creating Nondenominational or Religion Free Wedding Vows

Perhaps the easiest way to create nondenominational or religion free wedding vows is to replace any reference to “God” you find in traditional wedding vows to simply “higher power.” Or, you might be able to eliminate the reference completely. For example, you could change this portion of a traditional wedding vow:

I, (Groom's Name), take thee, (Bride's Name),
to be my lawfully wedded wife,
knowing in my heart and soul that you will be
forever my friend,
my faithful partner through life,
and my only true love.
On this special and holy day,
I affirm to you
in the presence of God and all those in attendance
my sacred promise to stay by your side as your faithful husband

To read:

I, (Groom's Name), take you, (Bride's Name),
to be my wife,
knowing in my heart you will be
forever my friend,
my faithful partner through life,
and my only true love.
On this special day,
I give to you
in the presence of all these witnesses
my pledge to stay by your side as your loving husband

By making a few key changes and omissions, you have successfully changed these traditional vows to religion free wedding vows.

Writing Your Own Nondenominational or Religion Free Wedding Vows

Of course, another option for creating nondenominational or religion free wedding vows is to simply create your own! When you write your own wedding vows, you are not obligated to follow the same lay out as traditional vows. In addition, you can write your own vows so they focus only on your relationship and your love.

If you do not want nondenominational or religion free wedding vows, you can also write your own vows to pay respect to each of your religions. You can either combine the traditional vows from both of your religions. Or, you can create your own vows and make reference to your religious differences. These vows can overtly discuss your religious differences, or you can keep it simple by saying something such as you are two souls who have united across religious differences.

See Also:

Writing Wedding Vows