What to Do With Your Wedding Vows After the Wedding
Most couples wrote them carefully, read them once, and haven't seen them since. Here's what to do about it.
by Maya JohnsonYou wrote the most important words of your life. Then you handed the card to your partner, and somewhere between the reception and the honeymoon, it ended up in a box. Most couples spend more time on their vows than on anything else about the wedding. Most have no idea what happened to them after the day.
Below are the four most common things couples do with their wedding vows, what each one is actually for, and the one option most couples don't know exists until it's almost too late to do it properly.
What do most couples do with their wedding vows?
The pattern is consistent. The vows get read, the card gets pocketed by whoever was holding it, and a few months later no one's quite sure which drawer it ended up in. Some couples frame them. A thoughtful few have them calligraphed. The ones who have the recording are the lucky ones — because they didn't plan for it; someone just happened to catch it on a phone.
The vows are worth more than this. Here's what the options actually are.
Option 1: The drawer
Most wedding vows end up here. The ceremony card goes in a box with the invitation, a few dried flowers, and the card from the venue. In theory, you'll get it out again. In practice, it's rarely touched.
The vow card itself is fragile. Paper yellows. Ink fades. Folded cards crack at the crease. If the card survives intact for a decade, that's down to good storage conditions more than intention.
Best for: keeping the original artifact. What it misses: any real chance of returning to it. The card exists, but it doesn't live anywhere.
Option 2: Frame them
A framed set of vows is the most common deliberate choice, and for good reason. A well-framed piece of calligraphy or letterpress text keeps the words visible — in the bedroom, in the hall, in the living room. The day you stop walking past it without noticing is the day it starts doing its job.
The practical note: have the vows professionally transcribed or hand-lettered rather than framing the ceremony card directly. A framed card photographs well for a year or two. A framed piece of calligraphy still looks as it should in twenty.
Best for: couples who want the words visible at home. The limit: a frame holds the text. It doesn't hold the voice.
Option 3: A calligraphy or letterpress print
A step up from framing the original card: have the vows transcribed by a calligrapher or printed by a letterpress studio. The result is an object worth displaying — something that reads as a considered piece rather than a preserved document.
The vows need to be typed up and passed to the artist. Good calligraphers need three to six weeks. Letterpress runs can take longer. The cost ranges widely: a skilled hand-letterer charges for the hours; a digital-to-letterpress print is considerably more accessible. Both are better than framing the ceremony card long-term.
Best for: couples who want the words as a piece they can properly display. The limit: same as the frame — the words, without the voice.
How to preserve the voice
Here's where the regret usually starts. Not with the paper. With the recording.
Most couples have no footage of the actual vow exchange from a useful angle. The videographer was covering the wide shot. The photographer was on the other side. The phone videos caught the back of someone's head, or the audio is distant, or quiet, or lost in the ambient sound of the room.
This is worth solving before it becomes a problem. Ask someone who will be standing close — a bridesmaid, the best man, a sibling — to record the exchange on their phone from where they're standing. Test the mic. Tell them to start the recording thirty seconds before the vows begin. That three-minute conversation before the ceremony is the difference between having the recording and not having it.
Once you have the recording, protect it. Save it to your phone's camera roll, back it up to a cloud drive, and pass a copy to your partner. Voice notes get deleted. WhatsApp messages get cleared. Email yourself the file, or save it to a folder titled with the date. The ceremony recording lost in a phone upgrade is the one you'll miss in ten years.
“You can reread your vows forever. You only heard them said once.”
What to do with the recording once you have it
Most couples have no good answer to this. The file exists. It lives in a folder, or a voice memo, or a video that's technically about something else. Played once, occasionally twice. Then not played.
The problem isn't the recording. It's that there's nowhere it belongs. If the recording is just a file, it's just a file. The vows work differently when they're connected back to the day — to the photographs, to the other voices that were there, to the moment they were said.
If you're also working out what to do with your wedding photos after the wedding, the two questions tend to have the same answer: find one thing that holds them together.
The wedding album that holds the words and the voice
This is the option most couples don't know exists. Not because it's new technology, but because no one had built around it this way before.
A Love Retold book works like a premium wedding album in the hand — hardbound linen, lay-flat binding, 170gsm archival paper. What makes it different is the story pages. Open the album to your vows, and you read them. Tap the QR code on the page, and you hear them — your partner's voice, from the ceremony, in the moment they were said.
The same works for the speeches and voices from the rest of the day. Your mum's toast. Your best man. Your dad, if he spoke. Each person records a memory or story from their own phone — no apps, no downloads — and it's transcribed, shaped into a written piece in their voice, and set on the page with the original audio preserved behind the QR code.
Your vows don't live in a recording file. They live in a page you can open any time — alongside the photographs, alongside the people who were there. See how the book is built and what it holds.
The book sits in the same price band as a premium wedding album. The difference is what it carries alongside the photographs. The words. The voices. The recordings you made, and the rest of the day that went with them.
Best for: couples who want the vows alongside everything else that was said on the day. What it asks: the recording you took, and a little time to collect stories from the people who were there. How to get started: the first three to six months are the right window, while the day is still specific in everyone's memory.
Keep them in the words and in your voice
Your vows are the most considered thing you've ever said to another person. Most couples spend more time writing them than anything else about the wedding. They deserve more than a drawer.
If you have the recording, pair it with something that holds it properly. If you don't have it yet and the ceremony is still ahead of you, plan for it. If the day has already passed, check with your videographer — ambient or lapel-mic audio sometimes survives that never made the final cut.
Love It or Keep It Free: a 60-day guarantee. If the book isn't what you hoped for, keep the recordings and we'll refund.
Frequently asked questions about what to do with your wedding vows after the wedding.
At minimum: keep the original card, get the recording if someone captured it, and decide whether to frame or preserve the written version properly. If you want something that holds both the words and the voice, a Love Retold book places your vows on the page with the original audio preserved behind a QR code — alongside the rest of the voices from the day.
Yes, if the alternative is a drawer. Framing the original ceremony card is fine for the first few years but the card will yellow and the ink will fade. If you want something worth displaying for decades, have the vows transcribed by a calligrapher or letterpress studio before framing. The investment is small relative to what you spent writing them.
Save the file in at least two places: your phone's camera roll and a cloud drive or email attachment. Rename it clearly — 'Wedding vows — [date]' — so it doesn't get lost in a backup folder. If you want it to live somewhere meaningful rather than just surviving, a Love Retold book can hold the recording page by page so it can be played back from the album itself.
Check with your videographer first — many capture ambient or lapel-mic audio that doesn't make the final cut. Ask anyone who was standing close during the ceremony whether they recorded on their phone. If nothing survives, the written vows are still worth preserving well. For future ceremonies or vow renewals, ask someone specifically to record the exchange before the day.
There's no deadline for the paper, but the recording — if it exists — is at risk from the day after the wedding. Voice notes get deleted, videos get transferred and compressed, phones get upgraded. Save it somewhere permanent within the first week. For a calligrapher or letterpress print, three to six months is the right window: the vows are fresh, the artist has time to do it properly, and the framing can be a first-anniversary piece.
Related reading
what to do with your wedding photos after the wedding
Sister page in the preservation cluster; answers the parallel question for couples who have the same problem with both.
speeches and voices
The vows thread leads naturally to the speeches thread — same problem, same day, same answer.
how the book is built
Direct route to product detail at the moment interest is highest in the album section.
get started
Contributor mechanics are mentioned in the album section; readers wanting the full process can click through.