Warm · about 2 minutes · 264 words
Modern Wedding Vows (2 Minutes)
Two women who have shared an apartment for seven years are finally marrying in a non-religious ceremony, and Teodora wants vows that sound like the way they actually talk at home
Said by Teodora, to Vesna. The names are made up.
The vows
Okay. Vesna. We've lived together for seven years, so half these people are wondering what's left to promise. Fair question.
Our first week in the place over the dry cleaner, we bought a green velvet couch from a guy online for sixty dollars. He said it would fit up the stairs. It did not fit up the stairs. We got it in through the fire escape at eleven at night with a rope, while the dry cleaner's cat watched from the window. You did the math on the angle. I did the yelling.
That couch has been in three apartments now. It's got a burn on one arm from the candle incident, a spring that pokes up if you sit on the left, and about four hundred episodes of the show we keep swearing we'll quit.
We didn't need a wedding to be a family. We've been one since the fire escape. I just wanted to stand up in front of everybody and say it, because you've earned hearing it said out loud.
So, stuff I'll actually do. I'll stop leaving my mugs on the windowsill. I promise to tell you when I'm stressed before it turns into me reorganizing the pantry at two in the morning. I will keep doing our taxes, and you can keep pretending you don't know how. I'm going to stay curious about you, even after seven years of guessing exactly what you'll say.
And the day you tell me we need a real couch, I'll fight you on it. We're keeping this one.
It goes wherever we go.
Why it works: She answers the question everyone's thinking, what's left to promise after seven years, in the first breath, which relaxes the room. The couch carries their whole history without a list of milestones. The promises are honest about who she is, and the ending refuses to replace the couch, which is the promise under all the others.
Make them yours
Borrow the shape, not the sentences. These open on one real moment, say one thing about the partner nobody else sees, make a handful of promises (mostly small ones), and come back to the opening detail at the end. Put your own moment, your own habit and your own promises in each slot. The guide to writing vows walks through each part.
Write yours, or check them
The vow writer starts from your own answers. The vows check times your draft and flags the lines every couple uses, without sending it anywhere.