I vow to stress over the vows.

Over our months of planning, we've been periodically popping into to meet with the priest who will be officiating our ceremony.  He's relatively new to my hometown parish, so there's a lot of foreign territory to cover.  Everyone approaches weddings a little differently, and everyone has their own personality quirks, so I was eager to see how he would handle us and our wedding.

Pretty quickly into the exploratory process, he dropped a total bomb on us (or, at least, on me).  He turned to us and simply stated, "I'm going to have you two memorize your vows, since you're marrying each other.  I'm not marrying you.  The only people saying the words should be you two."

And here was my reaction.

Image via Stealthy Like a Continent

Um, yeah.  Suffice it to say I have been silently freaking out over this for the past few months.  A good number of people in my life have articulated that saying the vows is the most poignant, dramatic, and challenging part of the ceremony.  The entire purpose of the officiant feeding you your lines one chunk at a time is because it's almost unreasonable to ask someone to be able to handle more than a handful of words at once!  There's so much focus and energy and love that there's no stamina left over for actual memory.

I'm kind of terrified that I'll forget the words.  Or I'll get halfway through, trip over a phrase, and then get so flustered that I'll need to start all over again.  Or that I'll blaze through them at warp speed, which I tend to do in normal conversation, let alone during public displays of conversation.  I mean, think back on how much gossip and drama got stirred up when President Obama's Oath of Office got all twisted about!  Important words matter!  They aren't meant to be screwed up!

I guess my sole option is to read them over and over again until they're really deeply ingrained.  Mind you, they aren't terribly long, and they are quite traditional.  The bar is set pretty low, which makes it all the more embarrassing should you take a tumble on it.

Image via Damon Day & Associates

Any other brides out there memorize their vows and have success with it?  Please tell me this is possible!