From the beginning, I knew I wanted to recite both traditional and personal vows. John did not. He was EXTREMELY concerned that if forced to read personal vows out loud, he would dissolve into a soggy mess. Over time, he warmed to the idea, and I’m happy to report that we both made it through with only a few twinges of outward emotion. (Our guests, though, were another story — lots of sniffles.) Once we had come to an agreement on the vows we would recite, we needed to craft them! We decided to set up some parameters so that they wouldn’t end up wildly different in tone — they would each be about a minute long, and they would generally take the form of promises. From there, we pretty much left each other alone to write. Photo by Tanja Lippert. Spoiler alert: We had a beautiful day :) I started jotting down lines, phrases, and ideas in a Google Doc about a year ago, either as things popped into my mind, or when I read a line in another couples’ vows that struck me. (I tend to get my best ideas while going to sleep at night, so I keep a notebook on my bedside table, and it came in handy for brainstorming!) I was also very inspired by some of the beautiful vows I’ve been lucky enough to witness, including those of my friends Amanda and Katharine, and this emotional Inkspot video! What brought things full circle, though, was a weekend afternoon a few weeks before our wedding day, when John and I sat down with a box of old letters we had written to each other. We were actually looking for reading inspiration, but I ended up coming across a line I had written to John that