My Wedding Vows

So I recently got married and instead of making my vows short, sweet, and meaningful, like a normal, well-adjusted person, I decided to make them long winded and painful to listen to. Instead of taking the opportunity to express my love for the woman I am to spend the rest of my life with in a simple and elegant way, I chose to feed my god-complex by forcing everyone in attendance to sit through 20 minutes of me struggling through three pages of mediocre writing.

Now, that’s not entirely true. I do love my wife and I wanted her to hear how I felt, how I feel. When you fall for someone it’s hard to truly encapsulate in mere words what they make you feel. It’s even harder still to express this in front of over one hundred people staring at you. If I were good at playing the guitar, I would have played her a song; if I were good at juggling, I would have put on a show; if I were good at slaying disoriented animals, I would have donned my matador costume and killed a bull for her (although, she is a vegetarian so this would not have gone over too well).

The point is, I felt like I needed some grand gesture in order to express my desire to marry her, something to let her know that this means as much to me as I know it does to her. But since I am not particularly good at anything, and I do enjoy writing, I felt that these vows could be my gesture. And in a lot of ways, it is at least partially self-serving, in the same way that playing her a song would have been. The gesture was for her, the performance, was for myself. Yet another item to the long list of reasons why I am a terrible person and do not deserve her. Anyways, below are my vows, and I mean every word of them. If you ever read these again Ash, I love you, and I am sorry I can be a piece of shit sometimes. I’m working on it:

* * *

First of all, let me thank you all for coming to this humble affair. We tried really hard to make this occasion as enjoyable as possible for both our guests and ourselves. And by “us” I mostly mean Ashley. I do not have the mind for organization, creativity, and prioritization that she does. As is the case with so many things, she is much better at this than I will ever be. So we should all be thanking her most of all for making this day happen. My skills reside in asking what I can do and staying out of the way, and that is exactly what I did in this scenario; considering some of the marriage advice I have received, I am convinced that it will be a very useful skill in the future.

Those of you that know me well, know that I am not a big believer in predetermination. I think most events, major or minor, don’t necessarily happen for a reason, but rather they happen because, well, life is weird sometimes. Randomness and coincidence can, due to their nature, be sometimes mistaken for something else. But sometimes when one is in the receiving end of one of life’s’ strange turns, it does make you pause and reconsider that stance, if only for a moment.

Take, for example, how Ashley and I met. My first day of work straight out of college at a local law office, I was met by the disarming smile of this beautiful, freckled deity I stand next to today. She was sweet, cordial, and as infinitely helpful as only Ashley can be. I was a bit of a deer caught in the headlights, but that day she brought order and calm to my life – little did I know that this would be the case for years to come – She was so patient, answered all my questions, went out of her way to help me understand how things were done and even laughed at my terrible jokes. She kept me afloat that day. And then the next day, she was gone. Turns out, that my very first day of work there, would happen to be her last.

And so we didn’t speak again for months. I would occasionally see her around and a couple of times we even had lunch together accompanied by two mutual friends (Hannah, her sister, and Kenna, my coworker at the time). I still remember the awkward exchanges, that laugh she does when something is just a little funny but she wants you to know she likes you so she laughs a little bit harder than she would need to, to get the point across. I should have picked up then that she may have been interested, but I kept thinking “Why would she be interested in me?” She could have done so much better. She still can. Although, this does not seem like the best occasion to remind her of that.

I don’t remember how it happened exactly, but I do know Hannah was involved, she’ll be able to tell you the story better but, she gave me Ashley’ number. Big mistake.

Side note – I owe you a drink for that Han, not now obviously, but let’s talk after Zebulon is born. And yes, that is the name of her child.

Anyways, I get her number and we text back and forth for days as millennials tend to do, as most of us have forgotten what human interaction is like without the aid of technology. But even through those colorless lines of text on my phone, her personality shone through, I was hooked. I thought we were just being friendly at first, I even told my friend Justin that, even though I was very interested it didn’t seem like she was. But I kept at it. I figured, here is this amazing human being that anyone would be lucky to be with, her presence is vibrant and bright, she exudes joy and positivity, and I would be dumb to not at least try to be in her periphery. Besides, that in of itself is more than I deserve.

We ended up having lunch one day, her idea. We sat at Nico’s, eating a bad Calzone. I got the same thing she did, I was too nervous to make up my mind about the menu. It was broccoli and feta – I didn’t know then that those ingredients would become a staple in my diet in the coming years – We joked about Pokémon, we clumsily flirted by pushing the condiments back and forth across the table to each other, I smiled until my cheeks hurt.

It was awkward and silly. It was the best single hour of my entire life.

I left that place giddy, I knew then, this was real. We went on a real date shortly after. We exchanged our first awkward kiss in a parking garage. We were dating after that.

It’s really hard to tell sometimes when the best moments of your life will be when you are living through them. We often don’t realize we were in the “good ole’ days” until they’re just old.

I am lucky enough to know, I know all the time. All I need to do is look beside me, and if Ashley is there, I am in the good ole’ days.

I didn’t realize my life was a puzzle until you introduced the missing pieces. You have made me whole. Because of you I stand here a better man than I was three years ago. Because of you, I will be a better man tomorrow, and the next day, and three years from now. You have taught me patience, understanding. You have taught me love.

I often think back to that first day of work. How I could have easily started on a different day and none of this would have been possible. I think about all the joy and fulfillment I would have missed out on. Life is random and strange most of the time, but that day, that day seemed meant to be.

I am luckier than anyone deserves to be in having met you, in being with you. My entire life will be dedicated to try to make you feel as happy and as lucky as I feel every day I am with you. My entire life will be a “thank you”, for filling my heart with love and joy, for letting me cozy up under your light. Today I marry my best friend. Today, I, Orlando Gonzalez, take you, Ashley Bourget as my wife. Now and forever…

• I vow to be with you in sickness and in health
• I vow to be beside you in times of scarcity and in times of plenty.
• I vow to share all that I am and all that I will ever possess, for we are one
• I vow to be your rock, your shoulder to cry on, your someone to lean on
• I vow to always get extra queso whenever we order Mexican food
• I vow to always have a place for Puck under our fleece
• I vow to always let you listen to whatever sad white boy with a guitar you want to play on the radio
• I vow to be your biggest fan in any artistic endeavor you wish to pursue
• I vow to be one of those cute old couples that still hold hands and kiss and never grew cynical or bitter after so many years together
• I vow to miss you every second we are apart
• I vow to go on every adventure together
• I vow to never go to bed angry
• I vow to be a good father to our children as I know you will be the best mother anyone could hope for
• I vow to make every argument productive so we may grow stronger as a result
• I vow to be a good husband, and more, a good friend. Your best friend.
• I vow to tell you I love you every single day for the rest of my life
• I vow that these vows and promises mean something, that my words aren’t hollow, that I am here to stay.

At times I feel like our love was not made, but discovered. Like an ancient artifact patiently waiting beneath the sands, waiting for us. How many times have we walked passed it without knowing it was just within our reach? How many times have we searched without finding it? How many times did we dig just a few inches from where it was? How many times were we so close, yet so far?

But now that is ours, more than anything else, I vow to curate this precious thing, this wonderful thing we stumbled upon. Seas will rise and fall, mountains will crumble, we will wither and die and our bodies and bones will turn to dust, one day our names will be spoken for the last time, one day, we will be forgotten, but our love… our love will remain for as long as there is time, it will wait patiently for some other lucky fools to find it, and god I hope they do, because everyone deserves to be this happy.