Renew Wedding Vows

[IrritableCowSyndrome]

AIBU to not understand why married couples renew their wedding vows?

I know this isn't necessarily the case, but it makes me wonder if one of them has done something wrong in the relationship, so they are trying to start afresh!

One has cheated. Or just massive attention seekers.

Ah that's beautiful!

Previously I would have always presumed there was cheating or time apart involved and it was being done as a fresh start. However I now know a couple that did it in a family only ceremony for a big anniversary. One of them had been very unwell so it felt like a celebration that they had made it to the big anniversary and were happy and healthy, and a show of appreciation for getting each other through a tough time.

So many people on here seem to assume it’s because of an affair that I now feel sorry for people who have one - they’re thinking it’s a nice, meaningful thing to do and don’t realise that a lot of their guests will be wondering which one cheated.

I admit to judging a celeb couple who had renewed their vows every year because it reminded me of how it used to be when you rented a flat and had an annual renewal of the tenancy agreement.

Would assume cheating.

We considered renewing our vows for our 20th anniversary but doing it in Vegas at the Elvis chapel. We still have an incredibly strong marriage and had no issues but this seemed like such a fun thing and very silly.

It probably won't happen as we've decided we don't really want to go to Vegas again. We won't do anything instead.

We had a big party for our 10th wedding anniversary. When we got married, my dad was dying and we had to bring the wedding forward by 6 weeks. We couldn't have the venue we had originally booked and a number of guests couldn't come. I was also finishing a PGCE and buying a house, so it was immensely stressful. Dad died 3 weeks later.

A decade on, I felt ready to have a party with lots of friends and family who couldn't make the original event. I wore my wedding dress for a part of the evening.

We didn't go for a vow renewal as we hadn't broken our vows (and I didn't need something extra to organise), but I can see why someone else in a similar position might choose that option.

We renewed ours on our 25th.
No affairs or anything like that it was a nice thing to do.

It was just the two of us.

I think I'd quite like to do it. It feels meaningful to me, to reaffirm ourselves now that we're a family, as opposed to two random singles who could easily get divorced 😁.

We're having a difficult period right now and I think it'd be great to have some sort of marker that says 'wow we got through that together'.

I'd do it just us and the kids though. Wouldn't invite an audience. Also, DH thinks I am insane so it won't be happening 😆

I just know that I'm a VERY different person from who I was when we got married; it's almost like it never happened, and I can't even remember who I was really.

Very true SpookTacula. I can’t actually remember my vows, I was so nervous and also it feels like a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then.