Elopement Wedding Vows (2 Minutes)

The vows

Kiran, at the trailhead this morning there was a metal box with a logbook inside. You wrote both our names, the date, and "back by 4." Then, next to "purpose of trip," you wrote "getting married." Some ranger is going to read that and smile.

It's just us up here. Us, and a photographer who has been very patient about the switchbacks.

You picked this lookout two summers ago. We were lost, you had the map folded wrong, and we came around a corner and there was the whole valley. You sat down on this exact rock and said, "If we ever do it, we do it here." I said sure. I thought you were tired.

You weren't tired. You never say a thing you don't mean, and that's the part of you I'd pick out of any lineup.

So here's what I promise, with nobody around to hold me to it but you. I'll carry the heavier pack on the way down. I'll stop insisting I know a shortcut. I will keep the trail mix heavy on cashews and light on raisins, since I've watched you pick the raisins out for six years. When you want to go somewhere hard and far away, I'm coming, and I'll do my complaining quietly.

I'm going to be honest with you when it would be easier not to be.

And I vow to be the person you walk back down with. Every time.

We should head down soon. We told the box we'd be back by 4. Let's go sign out as married.

Why it works: The trailhead logbook is funny and specific, and it frames the whole day as something only the two of them would do. The story about the wrong map shows that she means what she says, which is the one serious thing he wants her to hear. The ending calls back to the logbook, so the vows close with the walk down.