Wedding Vows

Ours were the standard Registry Office version in 1962. The family were shocked that we weren't getting married in church and were therefore certain that I must be "shock horror whisper it - pregnant.' Couldn't understand that our choice was to start our marriage without religious vows and trappings we didn't believe in - even when, disappointingly, I didn't produce until 1968. The idea of changing the vows never occurred to us, I don't think it was even legally acceptable then. I seem to remember I did stick out against promising to 'obey,' though. Main reason for getting married at all at that point was in order to be able to rent a flat and actually live together - flats were in short supply round Bristol and were only let to respectable married couples. The idea of openly living together whilst unmarried was then very shocking. We had literally no money, having just graduated and having to wait until the end of September to be paid in arrears for our first month's pay cheques as new teachers, so no chance to get a flat and save up for more than the most basic of weddings.
Yes, it would have been nice to write our own vows, I suppose, but I wonder what we would think of them now, still together 56 years on. For us, it was just a case of getting legal and social recognition for a personal commitment we had already made several years before that whilst still at school.
 
Many more people do it now Hen-Gen as fewer marriage ceremonies take place in either churches or registry offices. Changing times mean that people want to express themselves differently, but whatever one says, one has to mean it and not unilaterally decide that it's time for a different model ...
 
Our's were traditional, with an extra bit added for my late husband, whereby he undertook to help raise my (then aged 9) daughter as one of his own. It's my 24th wedding anniversary today. And this is my third wedding anniversary since he died. I still always do something to celebrate the day, and today, I took mum and my visiting brother & his family off on a jolly to the small country town where our grandfather was born. We looked around although the only shops there are a couple of minimarkets, and then went and searched the RC graveyard for any family graves. We found that in fact, most of the relatives that had lived out their lives there, were all buried in one large grave. There was my great grandfather, his wife, their son, their daughter, and a son in law, and a daughter in law! So, the great grandfather, philip, that's buried there is six generations back from my little eighteen month old grandson, philip!
 
I think it is popular to write your own vows, or a take on the traditional ones, these days. I don't think the word "obey" goes down too well, so is replaced with another word. I think it is special and meaningful that you have taken time to write your own.
 
:-)08

I am looking for a bow down in respect emoticon!

Lovely stories, one and all. I like the way you still celebrate your wedding anniversary LadyA and what an amazing story about longevity of the family, you must feel very rooted there. And Marigold, what longevity as well, its quite awe inspiring.

I have to say there is on way on earth I would promise to obey anybody in a wedding vow. I might well obey them, when I choose to, but its my choice, not another person's right. We just used the standard vows.
 
"I use this ring forged from the hardest metal known to mankind to symbolise the unbreakable nature of the love I feel for you in both this lifetime and all lifetimes to come"

Cheapo tungsten carbide rings bought on Amazon for £19.95 each.
There you have it! :D
That's enough sentimentality. I'm off now to bite the heads off of some live hamsters.
 
Brilliant Hen-Gen. I think we should have you running the country.
I think your own wedding vows are popular now, my brother has written his own three times !
Our friends who had the first gay wedding in Aberystwyth wrote their own and they were beautiful and they were in Welsh then English and it was one of the nicest weddings we have been to
 
Glad they were bi-lingual BYM. Someone I know of, who only spoke English, had to learn his wedding vows parrot fashion. Some time afterwards he said he didn't know whether he was married or not as he had no idea what he'd said. I'm a very strong supporter of the right to use the Welsh language but that was taking it too far!.
Mine were the standard, but slightly updated version for the early '70s. No "obey" and he promised to "share" (in hindsight I should have insisted he "endow" me with his worldly goods, might have made life a bit simpler at the moment!) With an Anglican clergyman for a father-in-law I think any suggestion of writing something different would have gone down like a lead balloon!
 
I actually think the standard vows are very beautiful, and I like the idea of being part of a tradition hundreds of years old. Not many people could come up with something so simple and yet so full of meaning.
Apart from you, of course, HenGen.
 
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