To Love and to Cherish
What Re-affirming Our Vows a Year Later Reminded Me About Marriage
One month ago today my husband Austin and I found ourselves in a stone chapel in the heart of the Adirondacks, surrounded by friends and family, reaffirming the vows we made on July 11, 2020. When we started planning our wedding, we had no intention of observing two celebrations. For us, while the marriage ceremony is deeply personal and intimate, it is also meaningful, and one we wanted all our family and friends to be able to participate in and affirm. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly had other plans. So, in July 2020, as the pandemic began to spread across the country and anxiety climbed in the hearts of everyone I knew, with a few closest friends and family, we entered the church and vowed to love and cherish each other for as long as we both would live. It was beautiful. It was perfect. Not postponing our wedding was the best decision we ever made. That said, we missed so many people, and from that summer, we planned to have another celebration when it was more responsible to do so. And while outside of the extraordinary circumstances of the last two years, I still would have all our loved ones with us at our actual wedding, celebrating again a year later gave me a couple of perspectives I wasn’t anticipating.
So much love to share that day. Photo credit: Ben Carlson Photography
A few weeks after our actual wedding, it occurred to me that I didn’t know if my parents even had a chance to meet Austin’s oldest brother. Due to the pandemic, we didn’t really do any mingling between the 25 family members and local friends who were there, and my question was a valid one. As such, our vow renewal was even more about those relationships that define Austin and me as people, and as a couple.
The weekend was a tapestry of our lives, each person a thread in the design of who we are, crisscrossing members of each of our pasts. During the rehearsal potluck dinner, more and more people from our lives arrived. It warmed my heart to see my dad chat with Austin’s aunts and uncles and my brother’s godparents sit down with a former roommate and her husband. Following the potluck, rather than splitting up the bride’s friends and the groom’s friends the night before the wedding, Austin and I spent the evening together and invited all our friends for a campfire at our Air BnB. My best friends from grad school (one of whom was an Eagle Scout) kept the fire going while friends from camp brought their baby and chatted as Austin’s childhood friends all gathered around the fire, laughing together. The weekend was full of moments like those, where the love from all these people was palpable in the air. Having already been married for over a year, I felt a calmness I hadn’t expected, and I found that I could easily focus on being present with each of these beloved friends and family who came for us. The unique nature of the situation allowed me to recognize how important all these people were to me and to Austin in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. It reminded me that marriage isn’t just about who we are now and our relationship with each other, but it’s also about the people that brought us together, from across our lives, and the love and support they still give us.
“This is one of the miracles of love, it gives a power to see through its enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.”
Photo Credit: Ben Carlson Photography
Admittedly, in the lead-up to October, I’d been wondering whether this celebration would really be meaningful. After all, we were already married. All my questions melted away when we found ourselves once again in front of the alter. As I reaffirmed my vow to love, comfort, honor, and keep him, I could feel the love from all our dear ones in the congregation, but Austin was all I could see. Even in the small passage of time since I first made that promise, I understood them more deeply and knew that they only gain meaning as time goes on. As we listened to Austin’s father read 1 Corinthians 13 again, the words moved me in an entirely new way. While one year is only a drop in the lake of a lifetime, even in this brief time, I’ve seen the power of our love. I’ve experienced how it shapes us and makes us, how it bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. Our love sustained us through incredibly painful and hard times and I’ve felt it sail us through the easier ones. In a paradox of love, throughout the ceremony, I both felt like I was back in our actual marriage service while simultaneously recognizing the depths our love has grown in the time since.
The weekend, so full of love, reinforced the truth about marriage that I realized last year. In the holy bond of love between my husband and me, we see a reflection of the love of Christ for us. In the reflection of that perfect, unconditional love, our love, too, is both entirely human and divinely perfected. In it, we see a glimpse of heaven on earth, and our own selves reborn in that love. One of my favorite quotes about marriage comes from C. S. Lewis’ reflection on the death of his wife, A Grief Observed. In it, he says “This is one of the miracles of love, it gives a power to see through its enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.” In his grief, Lewis illuminates the power of love, the mystery of it, and yet, the humanity of love. It is in such perfect love that mutual joy it perfects the imperfection of life around us, and makes that life anew. Most of all, while I love Austin completely and entirely today, I know that I’ll love him all the more tomorrow.
That all said, while one of our groomsmen announced to the crowd that this was the “second annual” celebration, I think we’ll hold off on another vow renewal and reception until at least our 25th anniversary.
