Wedding Vows

By Kenneth Stepp

 

First, I will love honor and respect you till I have no more days. I will love who you love and what you love. My vows are not only to you, but to your family as well. I am not marrying a person, I am marrying a people. Your tribe, now my tribe.

 

With all that I have in me, I will protect you and yours, with a fierce love that only you know is in me. I would not only lay my life down for you, but for those you love as well, I too now love them, they are your family, now my family. I Owe them what I owe you. My allegiance and my all, my life now belongs to them, I will become part of those who are a part of you.

 

I am asking them to accept me as you have accepted me. I am giving them my acceptance and offering them all I have the same way I offer it to you. As I kneel in front of you I ask you to join me in a new journey, one you are the center of, one where you are the main character.

 

Today I ask for your hand. While understanding the symbolism of asking for your hand, I also offer you all I have, all I have been, and all I hope to be with you. We have a beautiful future in front of us, the same way we have a beautiful love. Vibrant and vital to those who seek forever, and forever is what I lay before you. I will love you forever, I will love what you love, I will love who you love.

 

From this day forward, you are safe, we are safe. Together we will form an island that will never not be. An island where you and those you love are safe. Without fear of it ending, we are forever. The worries of the day end at our door. Our lives, home, bodies, and marital bed are forever scared, and you are, forever accepted.

 

Let’s take this journey together, marry me, include me, and we will complete this life arm in arm, together forever,  you are her, my her, my everything, my always will be, you are my forever love.