I vow not to be vexed - Fiona Chan (Sunday Times)

Read this from 9 Aug 09's Sunday Times. An interesting article to me and would like to post it to share with interested folks.

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By the time you open this newspaper, dear reader, I shall be a happily married woman - if all has gone well.

If, that is to say, I have managed to finish writing my wedding vows in time for the solemnisation yesterday.

You see, in the spirit of making our wedding personalised and unique - just like every other couple out there - my new husband and I decided to come up with our own version of "I do".

It seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, we'd already custom-made our bridal outfits (four for me), wedding invitations (that look like concert tickets), table favours (bookmarks with our favourite quotes) and photo album (created from scratch in a single night).

In other words, we'd already thrown tantrums at each other, screamed at inept wedding vendors and threatened to call the whole thing off several times.

Compared to that, how difficult could it be to write a couple of sappy lines?

It's not like we didn't consider just using the traditional texts provided by our Justice of the Peace and the thousands of wedding websites out there.

But it's diffcult to take your soon-to-be spouse seriously when his vows rhyme like a boyband song: "In sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, no matter what you do, I will always love you".

So given that both my husband and I make a living using words - he's a lawyer, I'm a journalist - we figured it would be a piece of cake to create our own lovey-dovey oaths.

What we failed to realise was that it would be nearly impossible to agree on what to say because, well, I'm a journalist and he's a lawyer.

Whenever I tried to be sensational and stirring, there he was being pedantic and practical.

Me: "I will love you always and forever!"

Him: "Define 'forever'."

It soon became obvious that our vow vexations simply reflected the fundamental problem of any relationship: trying to balance romance with responsibility.

It is undeniably poetic - and very easy - to promise someone that you will be truly, madly, deeply in love with him or her forever and ever, no matter what happens, even if you both get struck by lightning and are paralysed for life.

But can you really deliver on a promise like that? Being struck by lightning is all well and good, but what if, for instance, your husband starts to take on the personality of Homer Simpson? Or if your wife - horrors - turns into her naggy mother?

Then again, if you play it too safe, your wedding vows could well end up thus: "Okay, I really love your today, but I'm not so sure about tomorrow. We'll see."

It doesn't help that my generation is more likely to SMS "hi i luv u" than to write a real love letter. I can't remember the last time Iput pen to scented paper, although my husband did surprise me last week with a handwritten card. It didn't mention forever, but it came pretty close.

Even if you've found the perfect sentiment to express, you have to be careful about what words you choose. Saying your vows in front of a few hundred guests is a bit like performing stand-up comedy, without the comedy (hopefully).

What's the point of beautifully written vows if, struck by performance anxiety on the day itself, you end up taking your partner to be your "awfully wedded" spouse, through "bitcher and through poorer", "till debt do us part"?

With so many things to worry about, it's little wonder I had serious writer's block the whole of last week.

Up until Friday, I was in real danger of saying: "Dear husband, I, like, promise to, you know, love you...and stuff."

Increasing desperate, I turned to my most constant and reliable source of wisdom: TV shows.

There I found that even the most articulate TV characters run into trouble with their fake wedding vows. On the sitcom Friends, Chandler spends an entire episode coming up with this: "Dear Monica," he practises. "There are no words..." (pause in which he tries to think of what to say next, and fails) There are no words."

Fortunately, while I also had no words, I have many DVD box-sets. And so, after a long but entertaining search, I decided the best thing to do was to keep it simple.

Professions of unconditional and endless love are meaningless, but I can at least promise to do the right thing.

Which is to stay by my husband's side, for better or for worse, and to treat him with all the affection and loyalty he rightly deserves.

It won't be easy, but what fun would it be if it was? Marriage is, after all, nothing but a set of promises - and I'm looking foward to keeping every single one of them.