It’s difficult to find the words to say what you feel, especially when it comes to something as big as giving your heart to another for the rest of your life. I had wrestled a bit with my vows in the weeks leading up to the wedding. I remember reading them to my sisters, who had flown up to visit me for my bachelorette party. It was mostly a combination of quotes I had dug up online. Their advice? Write what you feel, not what somebody else feels. I loved that advice, and before the end of the night, it had all come to me:

Diego Silva. I remember the first time I knew you were the one. We had met up at some indie concert in Tribeca and you tried to sneak one more good night kiss in before the train doors closed, which means you exhibited some impressive finagling of the MTA sensors. People were applauding as you got that quick kiss in before the doors closed and the train took off. I was smiling like a total twitterpated fool.

And when you kissed me on the train that night, I realized something nobody had prepared me for; It’s better than the big screen. It’s twirly and mysterious and magical. It’s that nonsensical, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other feeling. But also, it’s a slow and steady kind of sustaining force that feels like home.

I love your almond-shaped eyes, how you’re cut like an action figure. But that’s just the icing on the cake. I love your curious mind and the way you simply can’t do small talk. I love the way you need to experience it all, to see new places and meet unique people. I love your restless craving to take on something new

I love the words that flutter from your extraordinary mind. I love your fierce loyalty to those closest to you. I love the way you love me, how you’ll go to absurd lengths to get that last kiss in and how you make me laugh harder than anybody else. And above all, I love your unfailing commitment to God, how you don’t explain your beliefs but embody them

Someone once said you know you’re in the right relationship when both people feel that they’ve tricked the other into marrying them, and I’m quite certain that I have, because I can hardly believe I am lucky enough to stand beside you today as your wife. So here are my vows.

I will be there in sickness, health, and seven train weekend service changes. I will let you have the bigger half of the last Levaine cookie, and always join you in the impromptu kitchen dance party. I will get lost with you in faraway countries, corners of the world that would only look half as amazing without you by my side. I will do the stuff neither of us wants to do, if you really don’t want to do it more than I don’t.

I’ll never try to hurt you, I’ll never try to change you and I’ll never hold you back. I will always be there, I’ll show up and never stop fighting for us. I will cherish, protect and put you before myself. I promise honesty and patience, respect and attentiveness. I will love you in a way that lasts even when there are glitches in the passion

I’ll stay sexy for you long after we have kids and I’m changing diapers each day, and I will always prioritize the family we create together. I will maintain that spark even when we’re old and wrinkly, for time and all eternity. 

I can truthfully say that you are not the man of my dreams because I’ve come to realize that what I dreamed for myself was so much smaller than what god planned for me, and I am honored that I get to share this one audacious life that we get, with you.

As Kiersten White wrote, “I didn’t fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we’d choose anyway. and I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you’  and I promise to keep choosing you day in and day out.”

To see how he asked, click here. Read about the big day here.    

Photography by Sarah Wight.