Vow Renewal Ceremonies in Scotland
A vow renewal is a chance to pause, look back on the life you've built together and celebrate the love that has brought you this far. It's an opportunity to say, I'd choose you all over again, and look ahead to everything still to come.
Who does this?
Some couples mark a milestone anniversary. Some want their children and grandchildren to witness the promises that began it all. Others have come through a difficult time and want to stand together and acknowledge just how far they've come.
Perhaps you're a couple marking an anniversary and want more than a meal out.
Maybe you had a small registry office wedding on a Tuesday, with two witnesses off the street, and never had the day you really wanted. Ten or twenty years on, there's no reason you can't have the ceremony you dreamed of.
Or perhaps you've come through something hard and want to mark the fact that you're still here, and together. A renewal can say what an anniversary card can't.
Or you might just be the couple who fancies it because you still fancy each other, which is reason enough.
What can it be?
Make it entirely your own. Just the two of you on a hillside, or a hundred of you in a hotel. The special place you have returned to for years, or the place where you first married, can feel especially meaningful when you stand there together again.
You might involve your children or grandchildren, who may never have seen you make promises to each other. Or you might have no guests at all, because being there with your person is all that matters.
You could include a handfasting, an oathing stone, the same reading you had last time, or one you wish you'd known about all those years ago.
Some couples write new vows. Others repeat the originals, because they meant them then and they mean them now. Some choose to say thank you rather than promise anything, because the promising is long since done. But gratitude, spoken aloud in front of the people who matter, can be a powerful thing.
How does it work?
If you’d like to have a vow renewal, let's talk. There's nothing legal to arrange, so we can go straight to the interesting part.
I'll want to hear about the two of you. Not just how you met, though I'll want that as well, but what the years have actually been like. What you've weathered. What you know about each other now that you couldn't have known at the start. That's the material a renewal is made of.
We'll imagine the ceremony together, tailor it around your story, your wishes and what this moment means to you. Then I'll put it all into words, so that when you stand together again, the ceremony feels unmistakably yours.