Vow Renewal Ceremony Script (20th Anniversary)

Ravi and Vida come out the back door of the house together, the way they do every morning, and walk down the lawn to where Ward is standing. Zia and Cato walk behind them.

The music stops. Zia and Cato take seats in the front row.

Please sit down, everyone. Thanks for being here.

I'm Ward, Vida's little brother. Twenty years ago I was nineteen, and I was in charge of the guest book at their wedding. I lost it before dinner. Vida, I'm sorry. I've been sorry for twenty years. This seemed like the least I could do.

Before we start, I want to be clear about what today is. Ravi and Vida are already married. They've been married since a rainy Saturday in May twenty years ago, and nothing I say today changes that. This isn't a wedding. Nobody's signing a license. It's two people who've done this for two decades standing up and saying they'd do it again.

They wanted to say it in the backyard, in front of the people who've been around for the whole thing. That's all of you.

The day after their wedding, Ravi and Vida drove to the coast for a honeymoon they could just barely afford. Somewhere past the state line they got lost, and Ravi pulled into a gas station and bought a road atlas for eight dollars and change. Vida told him nobody buys maps anymore. He said that's exactly why it was on sale.

That atlas has lived in the glove box of every car they've had since. Three cars. Vida let me borrow it last week, and I sat with it for a long time, and I want to tell you what's in it.

Every trip they've taken is drawn in it in pen. Ravi uses blue. Vida uses black. There's a black line to the hospital two towns over, the night Zia was born, with the time written next to it, 3:12 a.m., in very shaky handwriting. There's a coffee ring right over most of Ohio from the year they drove to see Ravi's sister and the lid came off. There's a page near the back where Cato, at four, drew a purple road that goes straight off the edge of the country and into the ocean, and nobody has ever tried to erase it. On the inside cover, Zia wrote her name and the word navigator when she was about ten, and she has been a terrible navigator ever since. Everybody knows.

And the page for their own state is held in with packing tape, because it's fallen out so many times. Twenty years, and they never bought a new one. Ravi says it's on his list.

I tell you all this because I think that atlas is what a marriage looks like from the inside. It's not neat. The cover is soft from being handled. Every line in it is from a day when the two of them got in the same car and went somewhere together anyway, even when one of them was sure the other one had the wrong exit.

I've watched them take a lot of drives. The year Ravi's father died, and they drove six hours to the funeral, and Vida drove the whole way so he could look out the window. The year Vida went back to school at forty, and Ravi drove her to night classes twice a week and did his crossword in the parking lot until she came out. Every camping trip that got rained out. Every wrong turn. Every gas station breakfast.

Zia and Cato asked if they could say something. They wrote it together, and they wouldn't let me read it first.

Zia and Cato stand up and come to the front.

Zia: We were going to read a poem, but we couldn't find one about our parents, so we wrote down some things we know instead.

Cato: Dad makes Mom's coffee every morning, even though she says she can make it herself.

Zia: Mom still laughs at the joke Dad tells about the dentist. It's not funny. She's heard it maybe a thousand times.

Cato: When they argue, they take a walk around the block, and they always come back holding hands.

Zia: We think that's pretty good for twenty years. We'd like you to keep going.

They hug their parents and sit back down. Ward waits a moment before going on.

Well. I don't know how I'm supposed to follow that.

Ravi and Vida have written new vows for today. Vida, you go first.

Vida reads her vows. Then Ravi reads his.

Cato brings up the original rings in a small dish. Ravi and Vida took them off this morning so they could put them back on here.

These are the same rings they put on each other twenty years ago. They're scratched now, and Ravi's has a flat spot on one side from catching it in a car door. They didn't want new ones. They wanted these, on purpose, with everything that's happened to them.

Ravi, put this ring back on Vida's finger and repeat after me.

Ravi: Vida, I gave you this ring twenty years ago, and I'd give it to you again today. I choose you, still, and I will keep choosing you.

Vida, put this ring back on Ravi's finger and repeat after me.

Vida: Ravi, I gave you this ring twenty years ago, and I'd give it to you again today. I choose you, still, and I will keep choosing you.

Ravi, after twenty years, do you still take Vida as your wife, to be honest with her, to make her coffee whether she wants it or not, and to stay beside her for the rest of your life?

Ravi: I do.

Vida, after twenty years, do you still take Ravi as your husband, to be honest with him, to laugh at the dentist joke, and to stay beside him for the rest of your life?

Vida: I do.

Ravi and Vida, you were married before you walked out here, and you'll be married when you walk back in. What's changed is that you said it again, in front of your kids and your friends and your little brother who lost the guest book. So I don't get to pronounce anything new. I just get to say this. Your vows are renewed.

You know how this part goes. Go ahead.

They kiss. Cato covers his eyes.

Everyone, please stand up for Ravi and Vida, twenty years in and starting on the next twenty.

The music starts again, and Ravi and Vida walk back up the lawn with Zia and Cato.

In place of a license signing, Ravi, Vida, and Ward sign a keepsake renewal certificate on the patio, using the road atlas as a desk. Zia and Cato sign as witnesses. Nothing legal is signed today. The certificate is just for the family, and this time there's also a guest book. Ward is not allowed to hold it.