To Have and To Hold: The Wedding Words of Thomas Cranmer

Part Three: Thomas Cranmer’s Top Ten Prayers, Phrases, and Proclamations That Shape Our Faith

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Our lives pivot around places. They sometimes shift according to dates and events. But most of the big turning points in our lives pivot around words: spoken, vowed, heard, and remembered.

No words change the direction of a life quite like the wedding vows of the Book of Common Prayer. Written by Thomas Cranmer in the sixteenth century, they have been recited, memorized, whispered, wept through, and rejoiced over at countless altars for nearly five centuries.

While the music, setting, and size of a wedding might vary, the words remain.

About Eighty Words

Consider this: the entire spoken part of the marriage rite—the consents, the vows, and the exchange of rings—amounts to just about 81 words per person. That’s it. A mere breath. Yet from those few words, an entirely new life begins. A new household is created. A covenant is forged.

And in those 81 words, there is not a single “if.” No escape clauses. No conditional promises. These are not contractual terms. They are covenantal vows. Public, personal, binding, and beautiful.

Read these closely: (This version is from the old Sarum rite from the 13th Century, which Cranmer had to work with)

I, [name], take thee, [name], to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, till death us depart: according to God’s holy ordinance: And thereto I plight thee my troth.¹²

Cranmer added the phrase “to love and to cherish.” He took the Sarum rite of medieval England and added it—a quiet phrase but a powerful one.

Love is not left to emotion.
Cherishing is not an optional flourish.
Both are embedded in the very structure of the promise.

The Wedding Vows