tribe | wedding wisdom (part 2: vows)

a few months ago, I married my best friend, favorite playmate, and partner in the most tremendous weekend wedding extravaganza imaginable (at least to us).   because it was so fabulous and I'm still savoring every single part (not to mention, actually being married to this guy - more on that soon), I'll take this in parts, one friday at a time.

PART 2: VOWS  

photo by our awesome photographer

we did a lot of thinking (and a lot of reading) to come up with our vows.   It was important to us that they reflected our shared vision for our marriage and our life together.

the best resource was the blog a practical wedding open thread.  It was so moving and inspiring to hear all the ways people promise to spend the rest of their lives as a team.

In our wedding, while we did a lot of un-traditional things (see part 1 here), we tried to consider all the traditions and think about if there was anything about the sentiment of the tradition (even if not the tradition itself) that we wanted to include.  One of the traditions we liked was that in traditional vows, both partners make the same promises in the same words.  That way one person is not promising to always be faithful while the other person is promising to share their french fries (both of these seem valid by the way, just different level of promising).  While we don't love the traditional words (obey is not so much our favorite), we tried to stick with the concept.  My now husband (!!) also wanted us each to have a part at the beginning where we got to say a little something unique about the other person.  

Here's what we ended up with for our joint vows:

I promise to choose you every day, to love you in thought, word, and deed,

to do the hard work of making now into always,

to laugh with you, to cry with you, to create with you, and to grow old with you.

I promise to honor the divinity in you, of you, and around you.

I promise to be your family and your partner in all life's adventures. 

Loving what I know of you, and trusting what I do not yet know, I give you my hand, I give you my love, I give you all of myself

I am honored, and so excited, to be your wife.