Vow Renewals
VOW RENEWALS – What’s that all about?
Don’t think about renewing your vows as merely repeating the words you said at your original wedding ceremony. Instead, think of it as an opportunity to celebrate your relationship, or to re-evaluate your marriage and your role within it. How has it changed? Have you had to bend and twist in order to accommodate changes in your partnership? There are many reasons why a couple might wish to renew their wedding vows in front of their family and friends, or even in a smaller, more intimate ceremony. Whatever your reasons, I can help you to create a ceremony that both celebrates and reflects, and that is Unique2u.
SCENARIO 1:
So, you’ve been married several years and you have a couple of kids (or not). There’s nothing wrong within your marriage but you seem to have stopped ‘seeing’ each other. Maybe you feel that you’ve started to take each other for granted a bit. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – we’ve all been there! You just need a bit of a re-boot, a chance to re-focus on the person you married – and maybe even on your marriage itself.
You M.O.T. your car once a year to make sure everything’s in working order, so why not your marriage. Now, I’m not suggesting that you renew your vows once a year on the anniversary of your wedding (although actually, as a private ritual in which you repeat those promises – and maybe update them – yearly, that seems like an excellent idea!) or that you ‘scrap’ your partner if their metaphorical tyres are a bit flat, but a vow renewal service, is an opportunity to prioritise and reassess your marriage and your role within it. It’s also an opportunity to say;
‘Look at us – 10 years on and back in love – let’s celebrate!’
SCENARIO 2:
You have been married 10 years. Your marriage hasn’t always been plain sailing and, indeed, there has been an incident that has taken a great deal of hard work and patience for you to begin to recover from. Under these circumstances, a vow renewal ceremony can symbolise the drawing of a line under one part of your married life and the start of a completely fresh page, with revised priorities and promises for your marriage which will help to steer your course on the way forward.
That is surely something worth celebrating with your family and friends.
‘Look at us – we’ve faced something bad and we’ve survived …. Together. Let’s celebrate!’
SCENARIO 3:
You have been married for 30 years and your youngest child has finally left home, leaving you alone in the house and questioning who you are and (more to the point,) ‘who is that person who is sitting across from me?’ A marriage will probably (at some stage) involve you transitioning from being a ‘couple’ to being ‘parents’. When that transition shifts back the other way again and you go from being ‘parents’ back to a ‘couple’, it makes sense that your priorities for your marriage are going to change as well. You may well feel the need to reconnect with each other, to adapt the promises you made on your wedding day in order to make them fit the people you are today and your desire to move forward together.
A vow renewal is a good way to symbolise that reconnection, because it forces you to focus, as a couple, on what you want and what you need from each other in this new stage of your life. It is also a wonderful way to celebrate your life together
‘Look at us – 30 years and still willing and able to bend to each other’s changing needs. Let’s celebrate!’
SCENARIO 4: (The cynical scenario, but just as valid!)
You have been married for 10 years. Over the course of one Summer you have attended 6 weddings and each time, although you are happy for the couples getting married, you feel a little sad that you have already had ‘your special day.’ You are perfectly happy with your partner and have no desire to start again with someone new, but there are a few regrets and a feeling that if you had your day again, there are some things you would do differently – have a Celebrant for a start!!
A vow renewal is a way for you to recreate your wedding day, with updated promises and, let’s be honest….
‘…. a bit of a party with family and friends. Let’s celebrate!’
