Blessing Vows

We were given three different scripts for our civil ceremony. Can your registrar at the actual wedding not provide this and you can adapt for the blessing?

Why is it such a big deal that no one knows you are already married?

To be honest, people are likely to know anyway, if they know anything about weddings. There are set 'legal' bits that you have to say to be legally married, and if they don't turn up somewhere in the ceremony, you're not legally married.

If I attended a 'wedding' and didn't hear those bits, I'd be really concerned that something had gone wrong and the couple were not legally married but didn't realise it!

If you are ok with people knowing you've already done the legal bit, you can have a 'reiteration of vows'. One of my friends had to get married earlier than her planned date because a relative was taken seriously ill and his dying wish was to see the marriage take place. So the 'wedding day' had to be turned into a 'wedding blessing' day, and they just used the original vows, but saying something like 'I recommit myself to the vow I made to...'

We are getting the legal bit done a few days before our wedding ceremony as we are having a humanist ceremony which isnt legal in England. However we are not exchanging our rings & keeping the registry office legal aspect as simple as possible. Although we didn’t keep this a secret our guests worked out that our venue (local pub) isn’t registered to have wedding ceremonies & some have asked questions already …will you be legally married etc? We have just explained it that we wanted a much more personal wedding ceremony that reflected us as a slightly older couple & our 6 grown up children & when you register a birth you have a naming / christening afterwards. Again I think their concern was we wouldn’t be legally married & wanted to check we knew lol ….as for you vows / ceremony are you paying someone to conduct your ceremony if so I would have thought this is part of the service which might just be our experience with a humanist but our celebrant has written everything for us & gave us ideas & suggestions that reflected us. Good luck xx

Not sure if this is an option for you, but we're having a "simple signing" appointment at the registry office as our friend is officiating non-legally at our wedding day (he is ordained but it's only legal in the US so we've been told in UK terms it'll be a "humanist ceremony").

The vows and exchanging of rings will only happen once on our wedding day so it doesn't feel like a repeat to us (this is apparently the difference between a registry office "simple signing" and "simple ceremony" in which you would do these things). Basically our appointment at the registry is the bare minimum and paperwork needed to be legally married - we haven't set the date for this yet as we still have time but these appointments are typically only offered on certain days of the month and not at all registry offices so we're still working out the best location/date option for us as we want it to be as close as possible to our wedding day but a reasonable distance to travel (it's a bit of a palaver for us as our wedding venue is in a different county to where we live so we're investigating both options!).

In terms of the vows, FH is really keen that we write our own, so I'm not much help there! But we'll still be doing the classic "do you take this man..." line and "you may now kiss the bride" and all that! We've also made the personal choice not to refer to ourselves as husband and wife or wear our wedding rings until our wedding day, so even though we'll be legally married already, in our minds we aren't "officially" married until our wedding day.

We're not explicitly keeping it a secret from our guests, but we're not broadcasting it either. A few people have asked out of curiosity, either because they know our friend is officiating or because our venue is on a beach so it's all a bit non-standard anyway, and in those cases we've just explained - no one's said anything negative about it, in fact everyone's thought it was really lovely as our friend officiating will be really special

A blessing ceremony can still feel completely traditional without sounding overdone, and the key is keeping the wording calm, sincere, and familiar. Simple promises around commitment, support, and choosing each other every day work well and sound close to classic vows without copying them word for word. For example, focusing on standing together in good times and hard times, offering respect, honesty, and care, and committing to grow side by side keeps it genuine. This approach also works nicely for a Tuesday Blessing style ceremony where the emphasis is meaning rather than formality, and resources like howinsights often highlight that guests rarely notice the difference when the vows sound natural and heartfelt.