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When my husband and I got married just six years ago, AI was more the provenance of sci-fi than scenes from everyday life. Today, it’s everywhere. We use it for everything from meal prep to research to relationship advice and even actual relationships. So it should be no surprise that many couples admit to using large language models to help them write their wedding vows.
In a survey of over 200 engaged couples, “36% of respondents reported actively using AI in their wedding planning and 3 in 10 have used image-based AI tools for inspiration or planning,” reports wedding website The Knot. “In last year’s 2025 Wedding Trends to Watch Report, we found that only 20% were using AI, pointing to the growing relevance of AI in the industry.”
And while AI can be a useful planning tool, the red flag appeared when an undisclosed number of those using it said they had it give them pointers for their wedding-vow writing. This has been happening for at least a few years: A 2023 article from CNN proclaimed, “Couples are using ChatGPT to write their wedding vows.”
The piece opened with Elyse Nguyen, a young woman who said she worked with AI to craft her wedding vows — with her future husband’s blessing. “It helped alleviate some stress because I had no prior experience with wedding vows nor did I know what should be included,” Nguyen said.
In an article from Cosmopolitan just last month, U.K.-based wedding celebrant Eleanor Willock claimed, “I see every one of my couples’ vows before their wedding day. I’d say around 30% this year have involved AI.”
Now, there are countless options for future brides and grooms struggling with writer’s block. The website Toastie.ai promises to help brides capture their “love story in vows as beautiful and unique as your relationship — without any stress.” Wedding.One has an AI vow generator that lets you input names and relationship details and select the appropriate length and tone. I put a few bits of information about my husband and me in, and the results were comical.
“Today I take you as my husband, promising to cherish our moments, from cooking together in our kitchen, to hosting friends with laughter and joy,” the vows began. “I vow to support you, to share in your dreams, and to fill our lives with the warmth of indie and folk music that echoes our love.”
Well, at least AI won’t be monopolizing wedding vows anytime soon.
I also tried Google Gemini, without offering too much information about our relationship. The results were generic, clichéd, and boring.
“[Fiancé’s Name], standing here with you today feels like the best decision I’ve ever made,” it started. “Over our time together, you have become my greatest adventure and my safest place. We’ve done so much growing up together, and I feel incredibly lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life watching us continue to grow side-by-side.”
It went on, suggesting lines about being “your biggest cheerleader and your softest landing,” promising good communication (widely believed to be the most important element of a relationship, don’t you know), and forecasting “fun” and “friendship” and “laughter.”
It’s not likely that anyone is taking vows straight from AI at its first effort, but the fact that so many people are now relying on it for such a sacred task raises several concerns. Most obviously, doesn’t asking your friendly neighborhood LLM for help indicate that you just weren’t willing to take the time and concentration to express how you, and only you, really feel? Imagine Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” but instead of his desperately romantic letter, Captain Wentworth copies a Rupi Kaur poem and calls it a day.
But beyond the clear issues with farming out your love letters to robots, there is a solution here that would make the stress of vow-writing and the temptation of an AI boost totally irrelevant. And that solution is traditional vows, the ones couples have been repeating for hundreds of years.
I grew up in the Anglican church and I had an Anglican wedding, so all I had to do was grab my Book of Common Prayer to remember what my husband and I pledged to each other: “In the Name of God, I, [my name], take you, [my husband’s name], to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death, according to God’s holy Word. This is my solemn vow.”
Some older vows say “I plight thee my troth,” which is old-timey for “I pledge to be faithful to you.” As one Episcopal rector explains it, “The man and the woman are each saying to the other, ‘I promise, with all that I am, to be true to you; I stake my honor, my integrity — my troth — on keeping these vows.’”
No “I promise to put down the toilet seat” and no “I promise only to use your credit card on days that end in y.” A wedding ceremony isn’t the time to be glib; you’re making a lifelong commitment before God, your family, and your community. The jokes can come later at the reception — when everyone has had too much to drink and they’ll land better anyway. As for the sweet memories and shared stories, there’s a place for them too: in letters exchanged before the ceremony or toasts throughout the wedding weekend.
A marriage is not just about the couple entering into it but also the institution itself and the couple’s vows to God and their community. The ceremony is not the time for bespoke statements. It is the time to pledge fidelity to each other in the same way as countless couples before you. And that’s something AI can’t even attempt to replace.
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