Penny and I had talked about the vows, but in all honesty, we didn't really get a workable draft until the Wednesday before the ceremony. We wrote them in the car while driving to Michigan three days before the wedding, listening to one of our favorite CDs. (The song Jessie sang so amazingly at the beginning of the service is on this album.)
After laboring over what "ideas" about marriage and love we wanted to project, we just started talking about the things we want for each other. The rest came naturally, each of us contributing a line or an idea (then one of us would get emotional and start welling up).
We had discussed writing two different vows, but we realized that everything we want to say and do is contained in these two-dozen or so lines. (Inasmuch as a lifetime’s worth of promises can be summed up so concisely.) We read the same vows, made the same promises, simply changing "father" to "mother."
This is the second greatest promise one can make to another human being. (The first, of course, is the unwritten promises you make to your children when you bring them kicking and screaming - seemingly against their will - into the world.)
In my opinion marriage is no mere "contract." That's a legal term and has little relevance to the promises we made to each other. Our future is inextricably entwined because we choose it to be so.
It is truly awesome.
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