Renew your Wedding Vows in the Great Smoky Mountains

Vow renewals are a popular way to celebrate your marriage and there’s not a more beautiful backdrop for the ceremony than the Great Smoky Mountains! It used to be that couples would celebrate such traditional milestones as a 25-year or 50-year anniversary. However, in today’s modern times couples choose to renew their vows at whatever stage of their marriage that best suits them, whether it’s 6 months, 6 years, 18 years, 36 years, or whenever. Renew your wedding vows in the romantic Great Smoky Mountains!

Really, the most important question asked in a vow renewal ceremony is, “Would you do it all over again?” It’s a rhetorical question of course, as the couple is already married. The vow renewal ceremony is a religious or secular ceremony, rather than a legal ceremony. However, it does offer the opportunity for reflection on one of the most important decisions a person ever makes – to marry that special person and spend your life with them.

Couples have many reasons for choosing to do a vow renewal ceremony:

• The main one is to celebrate how happy they are in their marriage.
• Sometimes, though, it is a chance to recommit after trouble in a marriage.
• Sometimes it is a chance to reconnect after a long separation, especially when military spouses come home after a long deployment.
• Another reason is that a couple may have just had a short civil ceremony when they first got married.  Now they can have that church ceremony the wife always wanted.
• It is also a way to celebrate with family since the Smokies are a popular family reunion vacation destination, especially if many in the family couldn’t come to your wedding.
• A vow renewal is also a way to revisit happy memories if a couple married or honeymooned in the Smoky Mountains.

Best of all, a vow renewal is a chance to create new, happy memories together with the person you love most in your life.  Now that you’ve experienced the joys and the challenges that life brings, you know how important the love and support of your spouse is.  So the answer is, “Yes, we would do it all over again!”

The chapels, wedding venues, and ministers in the Great Smoky Mountains would be delighted to help you plan your vow renewal ceremony. They have ceremonies prepared for you, or you can add your own vows to share how your love has grown over the years.  After all, a vow renewal ceremony is your celebration of your marriage!   (It is recommended that you bring a copy of your marriage license with you to show to your minister to confirm that yes, you are already married.)

Written by Olga Wierbicki with Stellar Wedding Services with input from Pastor Dale Workman with Wedding Bell Chapel. For more information, visit Smoky Mountain Wedding Association.