8 Beautiful Vow Renewals That May Inspire You To Plan Your Own

"This was a total surprise to my wife. For our 30th anniversary, we had planned to visit Virginia Tech -- where we met, in college -- and Duke -- where we were married while I was in law school there. After speaking to a local judge who knows us both, I became convinced a vow renewal would be a fun thing to do. It was the first surprise vow renewal Duke Chapel had ever held. Judge Charles Becton, who had taught me in law school, was kind enough to officiate the renewal of the vows. We were fortunate enough to get to the chapel at exactly the same time we were married 30 years before. Lizz thought we were just going to look around. Needless to say, it was all very emotional, standing at the same time and place, with the same person, 30 years later." -- Mickey

"Sergio is an actor and I'm a Spanish teacher. We got married on September 19, 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where we were living at the time. Sergio is from Argentina and his family and our Argentine friends attended the wedding. Upon our return to the US in 2015, we planned a vow renewal to celebrate with Scott's family and our US friends. It occurred at Scott's family farm in Union Bridge, Maryland on September 19, 2015 -- our second anniversary. The vow renewal was important to us as it allowed us to confirm our love in front of our friends and family in the US. It was important to have the community support and the recognition of our love from all of our loved ones who were not able to travel to Argentina for our wedding." -- Scott

"After time passes, people change. Unconditional love does not. So, after 10 years we decided to reevaluate ourselves and one another, asking the question, 'If I had to do this all over, would I marry you?' The answer was, 'Absolutely!' To honor this, we decided to marry one another again. We recommitted ourselves to one another, refreshed our undying love and loyalty and did all this in the presence of our loved ones." -- Katana

"Our first wedding was on September 7, 2007. We got married in the Netherlands, which is where we live. It was a small wedding. Marjolein was pregnant. We decided at that moment we would do it over, but bigger and more romantic. In September 2014, we had this wonderful wedding with all our friends and family in the Castello di Montegridolfo church in Italy. It was an amazing weekend! We share such a deep love, and with the great memories in mind from the 2014 renewal, we decided to do it all over the following year, but this time secretly and just for the two of us. We decided to renew our vows at the same church, Castello di Montegridolfo. It was really romantic and just for the two of us. After the ceremony we took a sailing boat to a private beach and enjoyed the day. So we've gotten married three times. We are getting a bit addicted now!" -- Arnout

"Cris planned the whole thing for our 15th anniversary as a surprise to me. I only knew the dates and average daily temperature of the destination -- Paris. We decided that we would go down to Seine river and take one those hop-on, hop-off tours, and while I was checking out the map, Erika and Ryan of Rowell Photography showed up. I was emotional, and it was all a bit surreal -- I didn’t know what to think. The ceremony was on the Bir-Hakeim bridge, and Cris even booked a pastor from an English church in Paris. We wrote our own vows -- mine were written the night before -- and Cris had a few months to work on his. It was something we didn’t do when we got married, and since we are also wedding photographers, we always talked about if we could ever re-do our ceremony, we would write our own vows. It was absolutely perfect." -- Sandra

"The vow renewal was a surprise entirely planned by Weì. He had cleared the day of our 12th anniversary off with my boss for us to make the surprise day trip from Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Lake Tahoe in California. We got to Basecamp Hotel and Weì surprised me with a dress 'for dinner.' When we got to the vow renewal garden site beautifully situated by the lake, I saw a string duo playing and an arch beautifully decorated. I remember saying, 'Ooh someone's about to get married.' We walked a few more steps and saw the photographer, our good friend Caroline. I thought, 'Oh Caroline is photographing the wedding!' I proceeded into the site to go say 'Hi' to Caroline. After we hugged, she handed me a beautiful bouquet -- imagine my surprise! She whispered to me, 'You're getting married, dear!' At that point, tears streamed down my face as I was guided down the aisle toward the arch. At the arch was our good friend Josh, who was our commissioner for the renewal. Weì read vows he had prepared as tears streamed down his face. It was beautiful." -- Diane

"When we first announced we were doing a vow renewal after five years of marriage, a lot of people thought it was too soon, because you do tend to hear of it as being more of a milestone event and celebration down the road. But we had a couple of reasons why we wanted to do this. First, our oldest daughter -- who is now four -- kept asking us why she wasn't in our wedding photos. She was a little offended and that probably has to do with the fact that I'm a wedding photographer, and she sees images of brides all the time, and it just meant a lot to her to be 'at our wedding.' The other reason was so simple. We are so, so crazy about each other. We love our love and we wanted to celebrate it again because it's way too much fun to put on a pretty wedding gown and get to be his bride again. The most meaningful of all of it for us was having all three daughters there with us. You may only see two in the image, but we found out two days beforehand that were having yet another little girl. That vow renewal was about more than just the two of us." -- Amanda

"We did our vow renewal with just the two of us and our kids, Myles and Kaia, for our 10th anniversary, and it ended up being such a bonding and beautiful experience that our family will remember forever. When we first got married -- now 12 years ago -- before, we decided to have it in a church because we were worried about the possibility of rain in mid-March, but we both really gravitate towards natural light and the outdoors, so this vow renewal was the perfect opportunity to do things the way we've aways wanted to. Gabe and I are both wedding photographers, so we've seen some really beautiful places, but Holman Ranch in the hills of Carmel Valley has always been one of our very favorite venues in California with its expansive views over the valley, rustic stone walls and majestic oak trees. It felt like the ideal spot for us. The whole aesthetic of the day was inspired by our personalities. I love that the details were so personal to us, and that Gabe and I designed the hexagon backdrop, and that he built both the backdrop and the hexagon accent table by hand." -- Carlie