Vows That Wow: A sampling of altar-nate utterances for the modern bride and groom 

You’ve agonized for months about venues, guest lists, bands, outfits, relatives and food. Now you’re going to exchange boiler plate “vows” that sound like something out of a Shakespeare play? Why not make your lines match your lifestyle, reflecting core beliefs about love, honor and the tolerance you’ll need to survive married life? Here are a few creative variations on the conventional exchange. Feel free to have and to hold them verbatim or adjust as needed to reflect your own identity.

I, ---------- , take you, ---------- , to be my (wife, husband, partner, civil union mate, soulmate, etc.)

I promise to learn from you as your star pupil, and teach you as your grateful mentor, all that I know and feel with my heart, throwing gold stars at your feet, until that final dismissal bell in the sky rings for us.

Life will be our classroom, love our discipline and attention to one another our homework. Together we will ace our MATs — Marital Aptitude Tests — and earn a Master’s of Romance, a Doctorate of Devotion. And I will honor the two most important equations: One plus one equals love, and cheating equals immediate expulsion!

If life hands us a few Fs, I promise to study harder so I can re-take my tests with joy and fearlessness. When we argue and debate, it will be with respect; I will never send you to the “Planning Room” without a hug and a kiss.

With you as my teacher and my student, there will be no surprise quizzes, just orals. There will be no graduation from our union, only extra credit.

Subject: Vows
Date: February 14, 2002 9:13 PM
From: Buzz Nessman <[email protected]>
To: Love Bucks <[email protected]>

I, ________, take you, ________, to be my (wife, husband, partner, civil union mate, soulmate, etc.)

I promise to invest my love in you through bull markets and bear markets, through upticks and downturns, through Fed rate increases and decreases, through every quarter of every cycle, until the ultimate Hostile Takeover do us part.

Our merger is a sure-fire, can’t-lose, all-upside, value-added proposal. The hallmark of our union will be increasing output and growth. Our satin balance sheets will show rising profits, appreciating value, improving rates of return and positive love flow.

Our contract of devotion will be iron-clad, with a strict non-compete clause. I will happily share mutual funds, and I promise to never lay you off, downsize you, right-size you or jump into bed with a competitor.

If God favors us with young subsidiaries, I promise to nurture them with age-appropriate infusions of venture capital and help them develop solid business plans, financial discipline and impressive stock options for their parent-company executives.

Bottom line, you are my golden parachute, my Love01K, my nest egg, my heart’s annuity, my Social Security, my pension and my Roth. Without you I am bankrupt, de-listed, foreclosed, a tanking stock. With you as co-CEO of my heart, I am a darling of the Street, a chart-buster, a Master/Mistress of the Universe.

I, -------------------, take you, ------------------ , to be my (wife, husband, partner, civil union mate, soulmate, etc.)

I promise to love and honor you every day of the year, from ice-fishing season through trout, partridge, turkey, duck and deer hunting, and during the pre-season snowmobile sales.

I will stand by you during haying time, at Fair Week, throughout mud season, during droughts and deluges, and through those long summer spells of clouds and cool weather when our sunscreen and sandals gather dust in the closet.

I’ll sit by your side at town meeting, and cheer when you complain about snowplowing, posted land and higher taxes. If new neighbors come to dinner with tofu stew, I promise to be polite and only feed it to the dog when they’re not looking.

Marrying you will make me happier than getting an Act 250 permit or winning the moose lottery.

Our love will be as solid as the Green Mountains, stronger than a red oak, deeper than Lake Willoughby, more honest than George Aiken, loftier than a snowgoose over Dead Creek, and richer than the tax department on April 15.

I, ________, take you, ________, to be my (wife, husband, partner, civil union mate, soulmate, etc.)

Our love is a number-one hit, a gate-fold vinyl live double album, a permanent tattoo. I promise to keep your heartstrings forever in tune.

I will be your leather trousers, your salty sneer, your cigarette stains, your Jack Daniels and bottles of microbrew. You will always be my plus-one on the guest list, sharing front-row seats to the shows of our lives. All my duets will be with you, even if I go on tour, and you will be the producer of all my singles.

You will be the manager of my life, booking our headlining gigs together, copyrighting our love and reaping its royalties.

Be (pick one) the Justin to my Britney; the J-Lo to my… everyone; the Keith to my Mick; the Yoko to my John — if you promise not to break up the band.

Together our love will ring like a power chord, grow tighter like a rhythm section, thrill like a guitar solo. Our harmonic convergence will reverberate until the final encore.