Jayhawk,
I'm happy for you, buddy. I hope you have many, many happy years together. For some reason, weddings make me a little misty eyed, thinking... hoping... that the couple will love each other as the vows say... as their own bodies. I hope that works out for you.
You said,
I have been spending some of my time looking for the perfect words to express my love to Jessica in my wedding vows. Thank god for my word processor. I have typed and retyped my vows I don't know how many different ways.
a brief story...
I got married the second time at one of the city's finest hotels. I was still an active Witness then but the brothers told us that the Kingdom Hall was off limits – I was on restrictions. The courtyard of the hotel was surrounded by the twelve or thirteen stories of the hotel. People – strangers – could come out of their hotel rooms and see the wedding below, if they wished.
To see how our wedding would look like, my fiancée and I went to a wedding that was held there the weekend previous to ours. It was one of the very few non-JW weddings I've ever been to.
The ceremony was very simple. The Minister started by asking the assembled if there was anyone present who for any reason felt the two should not get married. He waited for an answer for what seemed like a long time. The silence got very loud. If there was anyone who objected, they had plenty of time to make it known.
He asked again... same question, and waited almost as long. No one said a word. Satisfied that the proceedings had the blessing of all assembled and with a few of the hotel's customers looking on from balconies above, he asked if there were rings. There were. He asked if there were words they'd like to exchange along with the rings. There were. The words were very simple and very powerful.
It was about the purest, most beautiful wedding I ever saw. All together, it lasted about seven or eight minutes. No pomp or high falutin' ceremony... just two people who promised to love each other always. And it was over.
I was stunned, not by how short it was, but how different and superior it was to all the JW weddings I'd seen. It will be an experience I will always remember – so simple, yet so beautiful.