Catholic Wedding Vows

The exchange of Catholic wedding vows is the focal and central part of a solemn time-honored traditional ceremony.

In a Catholic Church, you will be given a choice of traditional wedding vows to say from your priest during the pastoral instructions before your wedding ceremony. Select the one which best suits the both of you.

At the appropriate time during the ceremony the priest will invite the bride and groom to declare their consent, and ask them to join their right hands and then declare their wedding vows.

In the most traditional form, the priest will ask questions of the bride and groom individually and they answer “I do”. He could say something like this

First he asks the bridegroom:

____ do you take ____, to be your wife? Do you promise to be

true to her in good times and in bad, in sickness and in

health, to love her and honor her all the days of your life?

The bridegroom answers: I do

Then he asks the bride:

____, do you take, ____, to be your husband? Do you promise to be

true to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in

health, to love him and honor him all the days of your life?

The bride answers: I do

Or

First he asks the bridegroom

____, do you take ____, for you lawful wife, to have and to

hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,

for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?

The bridegroom answers: I do

Then he asks the bride

____, do you take, ____ for your lawful husband, to have and to

hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,

for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?

The bride answers: I do

The priest could also say the vows and have the bride and groom repeat them, or if the couple prefer they may wish to memorize or read the vows from a book. Below are some examples

The bridegroom says:

I, ____ take you, ____, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in

good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you

and honor you all the days of my life.

The bride says:

I, ____ take you, ____, to be my husband, I promise to be true to you in good

times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love

you and honor you all the days of my life.

Or

The bridegroom says:

I, ____take you, ____ for my lawful wife, to have and to hold,

from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for

poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

The bride says:

I, ____take you, ____for my lawful husband, to have and to

hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,

for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

After receiving their consent, the priest will say something similar to the following:

You have declared your consent before the church. May the Lord in his goodness

Strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessing.

What God has joined, men must not divide.

Amen

The declaring of the Catholic wedding vows is followed by the blessing and exchanging of rings.