Even under the best circumstances, speaking at your own wedding

In the words of Josh Gondelman, we hear both the weight and the wonder of sacred speech. He declares that even in the best circumstances, to speak at one’s own wedding ceremony is a task heavy with pressure. For how can mere words capture the depth of a vow? What, indeed, constitutes a vow? He imagines them as cries to the heavens, exclamations bellowed at the sky, as though love itself demanded to be declared before the cosmos. In this vision, we see that vows are not small promises, but sacred utterances, thunder made by mortal lips.

The ancients understood the gravity of words spoken in ritual. Among the Romans, an oath sworn before the gods bound not only the speaker but his household, and to break it was to invite divine wrath. A vow at a wedding was no less serious: it was not merely sentiment, but covenant. Gondelman’s reflection captures this same truth: that to stand before witnesses and declare one’s love is to bind the soul in words that echo beyond the moment.

His imagery of bellowing at the sky recalls the primal need for words to be not just spoken but proclaimed. When one weds, it is not enough to whisper love in secret; it must be shouted in defiance of time and fate, so that heaven, earth, and all who hear bear witness. The vow is both fragile and eternal—fragile, for it depends on human lips; eternal, for it calls upon forces greater than the self.

History offers its reflection in the story of Ruth, who vowed to Naomi, “Where you go, I will go; your people shall be my people.” Though not a wedding vow, it bore the same sacred weight, and its power has endured through centuries. Her words, like Gondelman’s imagined exclamations, were not polite statements but cries of devotion, binding her fate forever to another’s. Such is the power of vows: they outlast the moment, becoming legacy.

Therefore, let this truth be remembered: a vow is not mere poetry, but a declaration forged in fire. To speak it is to step into eternity, to bind one’s soul with the strength of words. Wedding vows, whether whispered or bellowed at the sky, are the bridge between two hearts and the universe itself. Gondelman’s words remind us that though the task is daunting, it is precisely in that pressure that vows draw their sacred power—for nothing eternal was ever born without weight.