Gettin' Hitched: Planning Vows that Don't Make you Gag

Hello sistren. As our wedding day approaches, we've had to plan things like the ceremony and our vows. Or as we've been been calling it, "wedding words." This was the most tedious part for us as every time we looked at example ceremonies online we wanted to barf. Now friends, while I am often cheesy, I don't like sappy and The Librarian can't stand either one. Phrases like "I will treasure you" were not going to work for us. But, with the help of our trusty officiant Not Pastor Skip, we are ready and have planned a ceremony we like! Here's how we did it in case any of you are planning your nuptials and also have an easily-triggered gag reflex:

1. Decide if you want to talk or answer questions. Not Pastor Skip, when we met over drinks to discuss the ceremony, said that he never recommends people memorize their vows unless you're a trained performer. Instead, we could either repeat lines after him, or he could pose questions and we could answer with an "I will." As I'm a crier and want to talk as little as possible, we picked the latter. The less words I have to say, the better!
2. Research. This one is obvious, but we looked at a lot of vows online. Most of them we hated, but we were able to find a few that we didn't find nauseating. The Librarian likes some of the UU Church's ceremonies, and they're pretty lesbo-tastic as they're all about communication. We found another that talks about honoring each other as individuals, which I liked. We made a google doc and put lines that we liked in it to share with Not Pastor Skip.
3. Length. Of the ceremony- get your minds out of the gutter. Because we are getting married on a public hiking trail, and the thought of other hikers pausing to stare is intimidating, we're keeping it short and sweet! 10 minutes tops and we'll be legally wed!
4. Make a list of words that make you gag. Because we are haters of the sap, we made a list of words we don't want in our ceremony. For us this included tender, cherish, treasure, soulmate, and take care of (we are all capable adults here!). Weirdly, I found out in this process that The Librarian hates the word "couple" because it makes her think "coupling" which is dirty. Turns out during this wedding process you just keep learning things about each other! 
5. Make a list of words you like. Since we hated so many words, we decided we better figure out words we do like, or we'd just end up with "Do you? Do you? You're married!" Our list includes: trust, respect, love, attention, adventure, play, and care for. "Care for," to us, is more equitable and less infantilizing than "take care of." As I'm a former English teacher and The Librarian is, you know, a librarian, words are important to us. 
6. Have an officiant who's willing to do the work for you. While we care about our vows, we remain a little skeptical of the whole idea and aren't confident in our abilities to write decent ones. Enter Not Pastor Skip again! When we met with him to plan the ceremony, we entrusted him to take what we'd gathered together and write it for us and he actually agreed! 
7. Put your wedding party to work too. Since there will be four other adults at our wedding, including Not Pastor Skip, we are going to have space for them to say nice things, words of affirmation if you will. This has the potential to go cheesy, but we think it will be nice and just sentimental enough to be awesome. Plus it will give us a chance to grab a tissue- or me at least. 
8. Decide on your ending. We are going to have Not Pastor Skip say "with the power invested in my by the state of XX" just to give a good ol' screw you to our current governor and other members of the legislature who have been less than supportive of LGBTQ rights. It'll give us a chuckle, and we did meet in this state so it's a nice touch. We're not religious, so there will be no God or "J-dude" mentions. Though, Not Pastor Skip has been practicing his back flip for a grand entrance. 
9. Decide what you'll call each other. At least in the ceremony. We pretty much hate all the options: wife is the worst, and life partner is gross, so that leaves us with spouse and partner. But at the end of the ceremony, Not Pastor Skip is going to pronounce us married, and leave out the "wife and wife" part, which works great for us. You may not have our weird hang ups about the word wife, so go on and use what you like! My friend suggested "With this ring I make you my lady," which I think is awesome, but sadly The Librarian is not having it. 
10. Incorporate your pets. What kind of lesbians would we be if we didn't include our animals in the vows? Vowing to take care of our kitties, the dog, and the fish is definitely worthy of inclusion.  

One of the fabulous things about planning a queer wedding is that people have few expectations and you have complete freedom to make it about your relationship. The biggest part of our ceremony will be the gorgeous location. We'll all take a short hike up together, do the ceremony, have a toast from our flasks, and then take another shorter hike farther up to another beautiful vista where we'll take a bunch of pictures and enjoy the space. It's something we love, it's the right amount of symbolism for me, and it's all about us. As it should be! This is one of the few times it really is about you, so live it up!