from Chapter 11: I Do
excerpt from Be A Man
As the beads of time trickled down to our moment, lots of thoughts traveled throughout my mind. Rachelle’s stunning beauty completely shocked me and gave way to a moment that I could not ever think. When Mr. Yoast announced that Rachelle and I prepared our own vows, the reality of the moment came to me. I forgot to write my vows!
Before Rachelle gave me her vows, she turned to Kimberly, who stood behind her, and received a rolled piece of paper that was rolled together with my wedding band. It looked as if she perfectly planned this moment for years. Rachelle removed my wedding band and gave it back to Kimberly while Kimberly held both her own flowers and Rachelle’s grand bouquet of flowers as well. My bride quickly unrolled the ivory-colored paper and straightened it so she could read the vows that she prepared. “Walton, as we enter our lives together, I want you to know that you are my very best friend. Our love has brought us here today for me to profess to the world that you are my man. I promise to love and honor you to the best of my abilities. As your wife, we will share laughs, have times of joy, and achieve the highest of the highs in the world. I will support you and your dreams, help you achieve your goals, and promise to continue to learn from you as you are now my life’s wizard of knowledge. We will have differences, times of sorrow, eras of pain, and periods of indifference, but through it all, I will stand there with you. I, Rachelle, take you to be my lawfully wedded husband for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health and will promise to obey . . . as long as we both shall live. I love you and will give you myself as we travel down this winding road of life for the next seventy to eighty years of life that we have left. Do not forget you have my honesty, my faithfulness, my patience, and my purity to you and only you, again, for as long as we both shall live,” Rachelle recited mostly from memory while standing in front of me as beautiful as she could ever look. Dressed in a beautiful white dress with green and gold accents, Rachelle looked like a beautiful princess.
She could tell that I was nervous as she looked and gently smiled. As she gripped my hand even tighter than before, I started my unwritten vows. Rachelle rarely wore makeup on a habitual basis other than lipstick and a little eyeshadow for a little bit of color. On our wedding day, Rachelle’s face was loaded with the perfect amount of makeup. Perfection could not be made any better than what Rachelle looked like on our day. She smelled like heaven, and because of her beautiful smile, I was ready for the honeymoon.
It was soon my turn to recite my vows, but I did not have anything written since I forgot to write or even practice whatever I wanted or needed to say. Ever the fast and methodical thinker, I knew I could just wing it. When it was my turn, I did not hesitate. “I, Walton, choose the love of my life to be my lawfully wedded wife to be no one other than Rachelle. You have stood by my side for these last few years through good times and in the bad times. I guarantee to cherish you and respect you as my equal, my partner, and my soul mate. My role is to compliment you as I protect you, honor you, support you, and provide a life for you and our family to take us into the rest of our lives. Today you are my wife and will be the one person that will be able to share laughter, compassion, sadness, anger, and most importantly, love. You and I will create a home of love and care, and today as we profess this prodigious love to each other, I marry my best friend to become partners and lovers for the rest of our days. Thank you for taking me as I am as I will give you my all, including my life and soul to keep,” I recited for the very first time.
“Walton, that was beautiful,” Rachelle whispered. “You did a great job!”
“I didn’t write it. I just made it up as I went along,” I whispered back to her. She looked at me very surprised before nudging me on the arm.
“I love you,” she replied.
“I love you even more,” I returned before we continued with the service.
As I was finishing up season 3 podcast, I came across this passage that I completely forgot I wrote just before I sent my manuscript to the publisher. Anyone needing help writing their wedding vows, look here for inspiration as it almost makes the regret that my wife and I didn’t write our own wedding vows. Almost, because I would have never gotten through it. Enjoy my people.
Be A Man Universe 