Ask David

My Fiancé Wants to Read His Vows from His Phone

A laughing Black groom reads his vows from his phone while his bride wipes away happy tears, holding her own small vow book

Dear David,

My fiancé and I are writing our own wedding vows.

I’ve spent weeks working on mine. I’ve written several drafts, practiced reading them aloud, and even bought a beautiful little book to hold them during the ceremony.

My fiancé says he’ll probably write his the night before and read them from his phone.

He insists that what matters is what he says, not what he reads it from.

I know this sounds trivial, but it hurts my feelings. I want him to take the ceremony seriously, and I’m worried he’ll improvise something embarrassing or forget what he wants to say.

Am I making too much of this?

— Romantic Bride, Practical Groom

Dear Romantic,

Let him use the phone. Don’t let him write the vows the night before.

Those are two different problems, and only one of them matters.

I’ve heard beautiful promises read from folded paper, index cards and, at least once, something that looked like it had been rescued from the bottom of a jacket pocket. The paper was never the point.

What’s bothering you, I think, is that you’ve spent weeks on your vows and he seems to be treating his like a chore to finish before Saturday. Tell him that. Not as a complaint, but as an explanation: these promises matter to you, and you want to know they matter to him.

Then hear him out. He may dread saying something emotional in front of a crowd. He may be afraid his words won’t measure up to yours. People put off the things that scare them.

Here’s a fair deal. You both finish your vows a week before the wedding. You don’t have to share them. You just both have to be done.

If he reads from the phone: airplane mode, notifications off, saved where it works without a signal. And print a backup. Nothing spoils a tender moment like a message announcing that a package has been delivered.

Don’t measure his vows by their length. A few plain sentences can hit harder than a page of poetry.

What matters isn’t whether he reads his promises from a phone or a pretty book. It’s whether he lives by them after both are put away.

More dilemmas, answered:

The letters on Ask David are made-up examples of real wedding dilemmas. The answers are David Pringle’s, who has officiated many weddings and grew up in his parents’ flower shop. Meet David