By far, the most important part of the ceremony (in my opinion) is the vows. Not the dress, not the perfect picture, not the single tear that falls from your beloved's eye as he realizes that you're walking towards a future... with him. It's the promises that you make to one another.
I have never wished to say the traditional "till death do us part" vows. We chose a Celebrant who is writing a custom ceremony for us. We feel so lucky that on this day, we will hear words that were written specifically for us, and we will speak words of love to each other that have never been spoken to another.
However, the act of writing your own vows exerts enormous pressure on the author. How do you sum up a love? How do you put into words how much this moment means to you? How do you thoroughly express the promises that you intend to keep from that day until the end?
The path I'm choosing to walk is to list out the promises that I plan to keep. Then elaborate and make them ridiculously long winded. Like 5-12 pages long. If you saw the Celebrant questionnaire I had to fill out (all 10 pages of it) you would understand that it's not only a possibility, it's a likelihood. After that, I'm hoping that I will have a brilliant moment of clarity in which all of those words can be boiled down to 2-4 minutes of heart-wrenching, soul-warming, heart-grew-three-sizes-that-day in Whooville brilliance.
Here's hoping that particular venture is a wild success.
