Some Hyper-Customized Wedding Vows | The New Yorker

Conspiracy Theorist

I stand here before you, a free man in what used to be America, and vow to protect you against all attackers—foreign, domestic, intra- and extraterrestrial—and to keep you safe when the S.H.T.F. (shit hits the fan). I will share my doomsday preparations with you, including arms and a ration of ammunition, and I will train you on how to successfully live off the grid, while still getting Netflix [pause for laugh]. Should you turn out to have misrepresented yourself and be, in actuality, a cold-blooded, shape-shifting, reptilian humanoid, I will request an annulment [pause for nervous laugh].

True-Crime Addict

From the moment you laid eyes on me through your binoculars, I knew that you were the one. Your easy charm, your impulsivity, the vacant way that you’d stare through me as if I were something less than human—you captured my heart. Should you eventually decide to murder me in any number of cruel and intoxicating ways, I promise to leave behind an ample supply of grainy videos and long-winded voice mails that will point to the tragic outcome but also throw the public off your trail long enough for you to evade capture and kill again.

Romance Novelist

As soon as you walked into my bookstore/bakery, my soul ached for your touch. “You’re the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever seen,” you told me. As each syllable slipped past your quivering, muscular lips, the look in your eye and the bulge in your trousers showed me that you meant it. I flipped around the “Open” sign and you flipped me onto my rare-books display case, devouring me like one of my cake pops. I covered you in frosting, licking the sugary glaze from your chiselled, sweaty body. “Marry me!” you howled, completely enraptured. “I do,” I whimpered back, seductively. “Oh, God, I so do.”

Social-Media Influencer

I discovered your content about a year ago, when you slid into my D.M.s trying to establish yourself as a brand ambassador for my brand [pause for LOL]. I could tell that our vibes and account reach were a perfect match, and that we were going to have an amazing collab. I swear to always take every opportunity to cross-promote and help grow our partnership as a third stream of income. I vow to always like and subscribe and eventually add you as a full equity partner across my media kit. Special shout-out to Smartwater for sponsoring this beautiful, ultra-hydrating commodification of love!

Improv Actor

We met on stage at U.C.B. In our first scene together, we committed to acting deeply in love with one another. We riffed back and forth, with some rapid-fire improvisations. We started stage-kissing, then moved into a sequence of gestured hand and finger stuff that cracked everyone up. In the ad-libbed ecstasy of the moment, I proposed to you. I’ll never forget when you said, “Yes, and . . . ?” And here we are today, tying the knot. I’m so glad that we dropped out of medical school to pursue comedy full time.

Member of a Folk-Rock Band from 2010

When I first looked into your eyes,
Across the barn I knew.
Ohhhhh! Whoooa!
Ohhhhh! I had to marry you.
Ohhhhh! Whoooa!
Ohhhhh! Oh, yes, I knew.
STOMP! CLAP! STOMP! STOMP! CLAP!
Ohhhhh! Whoooa! Ohhhhh!

Elon Musk

POLL: Should I marry you?*

▢ Yes
▢ U can do better
▢ 💩💩💩 (maybe)

*Must pay twelve dollars to vote. ♦