Vows, Rituals and Traditions

We have come to the place in Wedding Planning Land where our thoughts are getting rather heavy with ceremony and vows.  Teri and I confessed to each other a couple days ago that despite the fact that we already have an incredibly happy, content and well-suited life together and we are both completely prepared to tie the knot, there are some nerves and some apprehension and it is all around the vows and the seriousness of the ceremony.

We wouldn't be getting married if it didn't mean something to us.  For all our independence and modern groundedness, the pending commitment of our ceremony is something we are taking very seriously.  While we may understand that many marriages don't last forever and real life has a way of surprising all of us, the determination to make a promise; a vow while surrounded by family and friends is something we both want and respect.

So, with the invitations addressed and stamped and boxes of decorations and supplies stacked neatly in the utility room, the time has come to focus on the vows, rituals and traditions--the symbolism of the rings we are choosing, the music selection, the traditional and cultural elements we want to include in our ceremony, and the unique and meaningful words and vows we want to share with each other.

We have started gathering ideas and phrases and we bought a book: The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions and there are already several dog-eared pages of things we both like.  Just as this whole planning process has been an important journey for us in terms of clarifying our commitment, sharing values, and learning about each other--as we delve into what the vows mean to us, our relationship expands in a different way.

While Teri and I were both married as young adults (teenagers really) in heterosexual marriages, neither one of us put the same care, consideration and thoughtfulness into the wedding process as we have found ourselves doing with our ceremony. Whether it was our youth or our evolving not-het-ness, we may never know--but for both of us, this time around feels genuinely monumental. There are so many different ways to do a wedding, just as there are so many different ways to do a relationship or a marriage.  For Teri and I, our thoughts are now very much on who we are, our values, and the binding intention of the promises we are making to each other.