I received an inquiry from a couple (in the country to the south of us) to officiate a vow renewal:
This is just a vow renewal for my husband and I during our trip to Victoria – no guests, and we can draft out some things we’d like to say to each other and have you witness our vows. We were hoping to do this in conjunction with a carriage ride in the gardens. Is this possible????
You bet it’s possible! I was thrilled to have this opportunity. And when I met the couple on Zoom, I was even more excited to have been asked.
They found each other through an off-hand comment about “needing to find a Rush girl.” For both, it was around the mid-way point of their lives. In a very short time, they made such a surprising and powerful connection that they felt they needed to re-marry each other every year. The day they met became the day they got married a year later (no time to waste!). Every year on that date they have done a vow renewal in a new place, with different (and often spontaneous and unsuspecting) witnesses.
“She renews my licence to be her husband,” the Perennial Groom quipped. The Perennial Bride did not disagree.
“Mostly, we need to nurture our marriage and our love. We need to acknowledge every year, the good, the not-so-good, all of it. We know it’s not perfect but it’s perfectly ours and we need to celebrate it and most importantly, we need it witnessed.”
I was stopped in my thoughts by two concepts – that vows deserve to be reissued each year and that they need to be witnessed. Someone needed to validate the vows by hearing them. The couple felt it made them more accountable.
In our planning conversation we agreed I’d craft a ceremony around the theme of the band RUSH. (They are big fans of Canada.) They would say their vows and we would have a blessing of their words and themselves. And all of this would be in a horse-drawn carriage clip-clopping through Victoria and Beacon Hill Park!
It was a beautiful mid-September early evening. For 2026, their fifth wedding anniversary, they wore their original wedding outfits and chose Victoria. Red, our magnificent burly horse from Tally-Ho Carriage Rides, couldn’t have cared less what we were doing; he was still reminiscing about the carrots I fed him as dessert after his alfalfa mush before we departed. Our driver, Sarah, was the ultimate professional, allowing us all the time and space we needed.
The carriage, though open and public, was amazingly intimate. We stopped in the park for the actual vow sharing – and tear shedding. The words they spoke to each other were so personal and raw. It was humbling to be witnessing – and to be entrusted with – such vulnerability.
The groom said he had never known love until her, when he was 55; oh, my heart! She said she had never loved anyone so unconditionally and was so grateful for his attentiveness and appreciation of her, even in moments of disagreement.
When the tour was over and we were back at the carriage stand, there was a violinist waiting. She played “Ghost of a Chance” by Rush. They didn’t sing along but it was clear the couple knew all the words. It was their theme song. Here’s an excerpt:
Somehow we find each other
Through all that masquerade
Somehow we found each other
Somehow we have stayed
In a state of grace
I don’t believe in destiny
Or the guiding hand of fate
I don’t believe in forever
Or love as a mystical state
I don’t believe in the stars or the planets
Or angels watching from above
But I believe there’s a ghost of a chance
We can find someone to love
And make it last
I think back to the initial inquiry: “This is just a vow renewal” – it was absolutely so much more. It was a consolidating and validating ceremony for me as an officiant.
I firmly believe in love, and states of grace, and ghosts, and I believe in ghosts of chances. Now I firmly believe in vow renewals.
You don’t have to wait for a milestone anniversary. It can be ANY time. Perhaps you’ve expanded your family and need to re-promise yourselves to each other in that context. Maybe you’ve suffered a traumatic event and need to reassure each other you’ll be there still and always. Maybe it’s just time to relive the wedding day in the wisdom of your maturity and to say and feel the things you were too young / naive / tired / stressed / nervous to absorb then.
P.S. A really lovely moment during the carriage ride was when a young couple called out my name and waved, “You married us and look what we did,” pointing to the baby stroller! (I wish I knew who you were.)