Weddingbee Blog

Mr. Kettle wants us to write our own vows; I don’t. We’re like the opposite of Miss Doily. Mr. Doily didn’t want to write their own but she did.

Mr. Kettle is the king of compromise and taught me an awful lot about the beauty of compromising. My main issue with the vows is that I’ve felt a bit on display with all the pre-wedding events. I know, I know. I’m a bride. And with a large wedding, I will definitely be on display. But I just didn’t want to have to write those vows to him and have to feel like every one was watching and listening, and yes, maybe judging.

Hive, I know this is probably a ridiculous feeling, since everyone there is there to support the start of our marriage, but I just couldn’t get past it. But Mr. Kettle really really wanted us to write our own vows.

So we came to a compromise.
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As I have mentioned in the past, Mr. Buck and I have been together for going on ten years. I think anyone that knows us will say that we are very private people. We aren’t ones to be mushy and lovey dovey in front of people. We have an extremely close relationship, but the details do not get shared with friends, family, coworkers, or —gasp—Facebook. That’s just how we are and how we prefer to stay. Despite the fact that I’m a Weddingbee blogger, I write about details of our wedding, not our relationship.

All this to say that originally, the two of us were freaked out at writing and saying our own vows in front of over 100 people. We would both get super nervous, awkward, and probably end up something like Doug from King of Queens:

{Video via You Tube}

I want the vows between us to be natural. I am confident if we try and do anything other than traditional vows, both of us are going to end up in the awkward zone. We don’t want that, but we still want something personal. So, how do we have our cake and eat it too?

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On Friday, I emailed our ceremony text and readings to our officiant in Las Vegas. This email was a pretty big deal for Mr. Mole and me. We spent a lot of time choosing how to structure the ceremony, what tone to set, which traditions to incorporate. I was feeling pretty darn accomplished until I reread this section:

[Mr] and [Miss], please turn to each other and share the vows that you have written.
[Mr vows]
[Miss vows]

Oh, that’s right. We still need to write our vows. That’s not exactly an insignificant portion of the ceremony, is it? Fortunately, we do have some parts of the task accomplished. We picked out a fairly traditional set of vows for the ring exchange:
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I’m really proud of our wedding ceremony script. I think it works in both of our traditions in a beautiful way, and incorporates some other elements unrelated to either of our heritages, but are very beautiful. Our officiant put together the ceremony himself, and we made a few minor tweaks.

Here’s the script in its entirety. I hope you enjoy and if there are any interfaith couples out there, this may make for a good example if you are looking for something similar.

Processional

Gathering Words

We are here today in the presence of God to witness and celebrate the uniting in marriage of Kenneth (full name hidden for privacy) and Rachel (full name hidden for privacy). They are taking the first step of their new beginning; their new life together.

Loving someone is a reason to stretch beyond our limits, to become more for the sake of the other. It is to look into the soul of your beloved and accept what you see. Loving is the ultimate commitment which challenges humans to become all that we are meant to be.
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Hive, I have a confession. I am getting married on Saturday and I haven’t written my vows. Not one word. I kind of… um… forgot that I needed to write them. OK, maybe forgot isn’t the right word, but I just haven’t done them yet.

I’ve had them on this big long to do list of wedding greatness for months, but they still aren’t done. Now it’s down to the little, insignificant things on the list like ordering lunch on the day of so that we all don’t faint during pictures, wrapping wedding party gifts, printing inserts for the out of town bags. Oh right, and that one, big, huge, super important, cannot be ignored, reason that people come to the ceremony in the first place thing: vows.

The Baconator wrote his back in June. JUNE people. Really? How am I so incredibly under prepared? To get an idea of how long mine are supposed to be, I started sniffing around about his. Oh his? They’re roughly 2 pages of double spaced prose. Yep, the Baconator pretty much has vow poetry and mine go something like this: “Uh, ditto.” I have a feeling that’s SO not going to fly.
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We had planned the rest of the day before the wedding to be pretty chill and relaxed. After rehearsal brunch, MOH Sweet Pea and I went to get our nails done and then it was off to the Dog and Duck Pub for some grub and hangin’ with friends and family. I was enjoying myself, but there was a little voice in the back of my brain that wouldn’t be quiet and said, “You need to finish your vows.”

You see, I had started my vows, but was having trouble finishing. I was feeling intense pressure for them to be great…REALLY great. They were dripping with beautiful and flowery metaphors with a witty line or two thrown in for good measure and a laugh, but something wasn’t quite right about them and they needed to be finished. How is it that I couldn’t find the words?

Mr Waffle and I went back to our apartment and he hurriedly packed his overnight back as midnight was looming. He’s a very traditional and superstitious guy and technically seeing me on the day was not an option for him. As he rushed out the door, he gave me a kiss and said, “Don’t forget to turn the AC back on. You’ll get hot. Bye!” Then he was gone.
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So Mr. D and I recently finished our FOCUS test, and are awaiting our minister to tell us when our premarital counseling sessions begin. With that in the background, we decided that we should probably try to start and piece together what we want our ceremony to look like.

One of the first things we felt that we should decide upon was whether or not we wanted to write our own vows or not.

Image via Amanda Geier Photography

I was all for it. Mr. D on the other hand—not so much.
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Over our months of planning, we’ve been periodically popping into to meet with the priest who will be officiating our ceremony. He’s relatively new to my hometown parish, so there’s a lot of foreign territory to cover. Everyone approaches weddings a little differently, and everyone has their own personality quirks, so I was eager to see how he would handle us and our wedding.

Pretty quickly into the exploratory process, he dropped a total bomb on us (or, at least, on me). He turned to us and simply stated, “I’m going to have you two memorize your vows, since you’re marrying each other. I’m not marrying you. The only people saying the words should be you two.”

And here was my reaction.

Image via Stealthy Like a Continent

Um, yeah.
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I am a writer. Mr. Jam is not. So when it came down to creating our ceremony, I lovingly forced the idea of writing our own vows because words are my bread and butter. Plus, I sincerely miss our long-distance IM sessions where we would do the whole, “OMG, I love you!” and “OMG, love you more!” thing for hours and hours until we virtually self-combusted. And let’s get real: Who doesn’t want to get goose bumps listening to two people spilling their guts using words they actually wrote?

Jacqueline+Brandon Wedding Trailer from NoBox Films & NoBox Productions on Vimeo.

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The vows in my friend Jacki’s recent wedding video = part of the reason Mr. Jam finally agreed to write ours. WE JUST LOVE THEM.

But remember, Mr. Jam’s bread and butter is numbers, not words (unless they’re technical, though he was quite the essay-writer in college) so he suggested we write them together. I likened this to going Christmas shopping for each other together, meaning we’ll get exactly what we want but without the delicious surprise of, “OMG, darlin’, you know me SO WELL!”

So I created an easy-to-follow vow format, enabling our vows to be written in secret but still feel cohesive like they were written together:
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You guys, we are two days out from the day. Two! Days! So pardon my utter insanity, pretty please?

One of the things we decided to do for our ceremony was to write our own vows. Or rather, I suggested it and Mr. Lox was on board. I’ve never done this before so I’d like to share the experience with you and perhaps help you from falling into the same trap that I did.

Obviously I read wedding blogs. And so I’ve read multiple times about people writing their own vows. I had visions or us telling each other how much the other means to us, why we love them, and what we promise for the rest of our lives. I did not, however, communicate any of that to Mr. Lox. Now, Mr. Lox does NOT read wedding blogs. After all, why should he when he has me? So when I said, “Let’s do our own vows!” he had something quite different in mind.

Then we decided it would be super romantic to keep the vows a surprise. You can see what’s coming right?

Mr. Lox sent his vows to the officiant last week, just a day or two before I was ready to send mine. I had about half a page typed that I was still refining a bit. And after he sent his, I had a horrible feeling. A feeling that these two sets of vows were not going to match up. So I asked him, without revealing the content, if he could give me an idea of the structure.

Remember the half a page I had written?
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We’re in the home stretch, y’all! I’ve only got one major thing left to finish for W-day, but it’s a biggie: writing my vows. And I’ve got some writer’s block.

Savage Chickens

I’ve been working on them for several weeks, and I’ve finally gotten something written that is very romantic and fairly formal. But that’s a problem. See, as a couple, Mr. S and I are not very romantic or formal. We fart in front of each other, a LOT. We call each other “butthole” as a term of endearment. We pick food out of each others’ teeth.

And we are both embarrassed by huge romantic gestures and flowery language.
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In preparation for our phone meeting with the officiant this Thursday, Mr. P and I are gathering ideas for our ceremony. We approach tasks very differently. Whereas I like to start with the maximum number of possibilities and narrow down from there (lest I miss something awesome), he begins with a much narrower focus and expands outward as necessary…

This explains why I currently have seven tabs of ceremony inspiration blog posts open in my Safari browser, a wedding workbook (from just-marrieds K&M), and a desktop folder simply titled “ceremony.” I’m fully capable of driving myself nuts.

Here’s summary of things we’d like to incorporate into our ceremony:

1. Write our own vows.

After reading about Mrs. Seahorse’s vow-writing stress, I knew this seemingly innocuous task would need to be done far in advance and given its own month.

2. Keep it (relatively) short.

It won’t be Vegas-fast or Catholic-church-long. Neither of us is game for an hour of standing (fainting?) in the June heat. The ceremony ought to be long enough for it to feel serious and official, but there’s no need to drag it out unnecessarily. Twenty minutes feels right.
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So, here’s the thing about our ceremony: as it stands right now, it’s going to be short. And I mean short.

Our good friend will be officiating for us, and Mr. S and I drafted a ceremony script that we’ve sent to him to review and revise. I read the whole thing out loud—slowly—to time it, and it took less than four minutes. We’re having a totally secular ceremony, so there isn’t even a prayer or blessing to fill the time.

When we first decided to create our ceremony, we agreed that a brief one would be best. But as it happens, our definitions of brief differ. I think that fifteen minutes is a perfect time. It’s not long, but we can have some really meaningful, special stuff going on in that short time. Mr. S, however, was totally cool with having a four minute ceremony.

I tried to talk him into having a reading or two, but he wasn’t into it. I also wanted to write our own vows, but when I first brought this up to Mr. S, he vetoed that as well. He was a writing major in college, so I was surprised that he didn’t want to write his vows, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t the writing of the vows, but the reciting of the vows, that was freaking him out. My guy is a shy one.

Over Christmas, Mr. S’ mother tried, without any prodding from me, to convince us to write our own vows.
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Now that we’re into serious countdown time, procrastinating on things like, oh, the ceremony has got to stop!

We’ve known for a while now that we would use the “Art of a Good Marriage” by Wilfred Arlan Peterson as a ceremony reading, just like Mrs. Gloss and Miss Elephant, but what we couldn’t figure out were our vows. See, “I, Hippo, take you King Hippo, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do us part,” is simple and beautiful. But those super traditional vows don’t really fit with the wedding we’ve created. We are getting married in a art gallery, and serving wine before the ceremony. Clearly, this is not going to be an uber-traditional affair. To me, using super traditional vows in this very non-traditional wedding setting, just doesn’t fit…

So we were starting from scratch.
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I like this post for a couple reasons. The obvious reason is that it recaps the actual moment that Mr. Toucan and I were wed. The other reason I love this post is because I think it’s a cute story that goes to show that sometimes the things that go “wrong” on your wedding day end up being the most memorable and cherished moments!

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So many times, we, as brides, talk about wedding perfection. After having our “perfect wedding,” I can tell you it’s the little hiccups along the way that make it memorable. Our ceremony hiccup was probably the most memorable of them all - after all who almost forgets to… oops! Actually, let me start from the beginning.

After waiting in the downstairs chapel for what almost felt like an eternity, we were finally ready to get hitched!

Mr. Toucan and his Best Man wait at the end of the aisle while the procession begins.

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