Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Writing Wedding Vows-The Sneaky Approach

Getting your partner to agree to and participate in writing wedding or commitment vows might seem like a stretch of your imagination but I can give you a way to make writing your vows fun and he/she won’t even know that you are doing it until it’s too late to turn back.

This may be a bit sneaky and shameless but considering that writing your wedding vows can be one of the most important things you can ever to do to ensure the longevity, passion and intimacy of your relationship, I know you want to do everything you can to get this into motion.

Here’s what you are going to do. You and your partner are going to create a vision board!

This is just one of the idea generators you can find in my Ebook, THE SECRET LIFE OF VOWS-How to Write Vows That Create Powerful Marriages.

A vision board is where you paste pictures and phrases that represent the dreams and goals you each have for yourselves and the dream you have for your marriage. Your vows will reflect those dreams. Maybe we could call your marriage or commitment vows ‘vision vows!’

Because that’s really what your vows are. The more energy in your vows, the more power there is to attract to you everything that you want and need to support your perfect dream.

Start collecting magazines on all sorts of subjects including travel, houses, furniture, family, fitness, etc. Make sure that you have the sort of print media that your partner is interested in. You should know him or her well enough to get the perfect stuff.

You can go to Google and click on ‘Images’ then keyword in what you are looking for, find something you can print out and you have instant images of your life together. Maybe you have phrases in mind. You can print out these also.

Ask your friends for magazines. If you are in a dentist or doctor’s office and the magazines are really old ask if you can have the one that you want.

Get together pictures taken of the two of you doing fun things and pictures that represent the emotional and physical closeness that is the cornerstone of a relationship and marriage.

You will need glue and scissors and poster board or foam board (for longevity). The pictures and words will represent aspects of your life.

Don’t get too bossy or direct the outcome. Just tell your partner that the two of you are going to cut out and glue pictures and words that represent what it is that you want to attract into your life and let the process unfold. Have fun. Don’t be too serious.

When you have finished the board each of you explain to the other the meaning of the pictures and phrases. Between the two of you most subjects will be covered.

Here’s where some of the sneaky stuff comes in. When your partner talks about the meaning of the images and words on the board ask questions to get to the heart of the overall dream for the marriage.

“What does that mean to you? How do you see ‘us’ in that picture?”

“What do you think we can do to make that happen?”

“There are no children in the picture. Don’t you want children?”

“Who will handle the money? How can we share this responsibility so that we are saving to be able to have what we want?”

That will give you some idea. You can come up with your own.

What I am asking you to do is to get to the essence of the dream for your life together.

That dream is what you build into your vows. You wedding vows are not the dream explained; they are the foundation that the vows are build on.

Your vows are for the purpose of making promises to each other explaining what you will do to support the dream.

Now it’s time to tell your partner what you have done.

Use reason here. Don’t get cocky and say something like, “Ha, Ha, I tricked you into telling me your secrets.”

Tell him or her that you want to write vows based around what you just talked about. Get out some paper and then begin to write down those promises. If you can do it right then and there that is best because the emotion and expectations of and for the dream are at their peak.

Here is what you can say: “Let’s write down what we are going to do to keep our dreams alive?”

“I promise to keep myself physically and emotionally healthy for both our sakes.”

“I will love you by encouraging you to be successful in everything you do.”

“I promise to read our vows every day to keep the dream alive and active.”

You can find more helpful phrases in the FREE Ebook, 30 Minute Miracle. I wrote this for couples who don’t have time to use my longer version. It would be helpful for you using this ‘vision board’ process.
There you have it. Your ‘vision vows.’

Was that fun or what!

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda Bardes, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and live it!

www.WeddingVowsandCeremonies.com

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