Vow: a solemn promise or assertion; specifically  one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition

I don’t think people take the phrase ‘marriage vows’ very seriously. I did. The whole ‘vow’ part, and what it meant to me, was something I spent a lot of time thinking about before I asked my wife to marry me.

That was 10 years ago and I had the whole scenario planned out: I would bring her out for a nighttime walk on the Outer Banks beach where we were staying, and I would ask her right then and there. Unfortunately, the bugs kept getting in the way of that: Every time we tried to go out to the beach at night, the bugs would put on a merciless and relentless attack. Eventually we ran out of vacation days, and on the final night I just asked her. She looked at me and said, “What are we going to do?” I looked back at her and said, “Say ‘yes,’ dammit!”

She did, and that all worked out, and on our 10th anniversary day, she had to go to work before we took off for a long weekend together. She starts her day at 3:30 a.m. and when she opened her car door, she found a handwritten copy of our vows that I had left there for her. I meant every word of them then and I still do.