Blog – What Do Your Vows Actually Mean?
So what do those vows that you say mean…I mean really mean…I mean actually what are they meaning?
The words that bind you together for the rest of your lives are really quite simple; whether you’re having a religious or a civil ceremony, you will have to say these legal and binding declaratory words. It’s the law, you’ve gotta do it, without these words…you ain’t married, ‘I call upon these persons here present to witness that I (full name) take you (or thee) to be my lawful wedded wife (or husband)’.
Easy really, you can say it simpler too but it has to be more or less to that effect, but what do these words actually say?
Well, to start with, you’re calling on all your guests to act as witnesses; not that they can all sign the register but they have all been witness and can swear in a court of law that they heard you say that you are entering into a legal contract with the person in front of you. Scary!
So then, what of the other bit, the bit that says ‘lawful’ and ‘wedded’?
These are the words that you must be wary of.
For instance, avoid using awful instead of lawful, not a good start to marriage, even if you think your bride looks it. Also avoid bedded, especially if you’ve already added the awful to it beforehand.
Other words that rhyme with lawful and should generally be omitted from your brain are: mournful, scornful and Cornwall.
Be careful because next comes ‘wedded’; please don’t say: beheaded, shredded, readied or decrepit.
Finally we come to wife, that wonderful word that promises comfort, passion, love, and birdsong even on the coldest and darkest of days; of course it is only once the tag ‘wife’ is added that you’ll notice the hole in her tights, or that she leaves the hair straighteners on overnight. So please bear in mind these faux pas: strife (too obvious), rife, knife or Fife.
So what I’m trying to say and not in-plant in your head prior to your big day is to avoid when saying your legal vows, words that are possibly the most important you will say in your life, please do not come out with,
‘I take you to be my Cornwall decrepit fife’.
Or words to that effect.
Zac Thraves is a registar and he’s heard it all before. Seriously.
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