The Vows

"I promise to love you through every update and reboot."

Three hundred people laugh politely. My maid of honor, Elena, my sister, catches my eye from the front row and mouths: Is this a bit?

It's not a bit.

"To cherish you in high resolution and low bandwidth."

I know this rhythm. I know this cadence. I've been using AI tools at work for months, and something about these words sounds too smooth. Too polished. Too generated.

"To be your default setting. Your preferred network. Your..."

I pull out my phone.

My grandmother, front row, looks horrified. My mother mouths something I can't make out. Three hundred guests are watching me Google something at my own wedding altar.

I don't care.

I type the first line into the search bar. Hit enter.

The results load.

ChatGPT. Word for word. First hit on Reddit: "AI Wedding Vows Generator, Results Are Actually Romantic?"

My hands go cold.

Jack is still talking. Still reading from the paper he insisted on writing himself. The paper he spent three weeks on. The paper he wouldn't let me see because he wanted it to be perfect.

"...through every bug and every feature, I vow to love you."

He looks up. Smiles at me. That smile I fell in love with.

And I realize: he doesn't know I know.

He thinks this is going well.

He thinks the laughter is appreciation.

He thinks these words, these computer-generated, algorithm-assembled, machine-made words, are landing.

I look at my phone again. The Reddit thread is full of comments: "Used this for my vows, wife loved it!" "Finally, something that sounds romantic without me having to feel things lol" "10/10 would recommend for emotionally stunted grooms."

Emotionally stunted grooms.

Three years together. Eighteen months of wedding planning. Eight thousand dollars on a dress he said he'd cry when he saw.

He didn't cry.

He smiled and said I looked "really nice."

And now this.

"Sophie?" Jack's voice cuts through. He's finished. Everyone's looking at me. "Your turn."

I wrote my own vows. Actual vows. Words I agonized over for weeks because I wanted them to be real. I wanted him to hear exactly how I felt.

I have the paper in my hand.

I don't unfold it.

"Sophie?"

The priest clears his throat. "Perhaps the bride needs a moment."

I don't need a moment.

I need an exit.

I look at Jack. Really look at him. The man I thought I knew. The man who just read a machine's words and called it love.

"Did you write those yourself?"

My voice is calm. Too calm. All our time together and he should recognize this voice. It's my I'm about to burn something down voice.

He blinks. "What?"

"Your vows. Did you write them yourself, Jack?"

"I, of course I did. Sophie, what's..."

"Because I just Googled the first line." I hold up my phone. "ChatGPT. Word for word."

The silence is deafening.

Three hundred people. My grandmother. His parents. Our coworkers. Our friends.

All watching.

Jack's face goes white. "Sophie, I can explain..."

"Can you?"

"I just, I wanted them to be perfect, and I tried, I really tried, but nothing I wrote sounded right, and..."

"So you asked a computer to feel things for you."

"That's not, it's not like that..."

"Then what is it like, Jack?"

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

Nothing comes out.

And there it is. The silence that's been there our whole relationship. The silence I filled with assumptions. The silence I told myself was comfortable instead of empty.

I look at the congregation. At my mother, hand over her mouth. At Elena, already reaching for her phone. At three hundred people who paid for travel and hotels and wrapped gifts to watch me marry a man who couldn't find his own words.

I don't make scenes.

That's not who I am.

But I can't do this.

"Excuse me," I say. My voice doesn't shake. I'm proud of that. "I need a minute."

I don't take a minute.

I take the whole exit.

Down the aisle. Through the doors. Past the vintage car waiting to take us to the reception. Into the parking lot where an Uber is dropping someone off.

"Wait."

The driver looks at me. Takes in the wedding dress. The mascara I can feel running. The phone still clutched in my hand.

"Please," I say. "I need a ride."

He glances toward the venue. At the doors I just escaped through.

"Get in," he says.

I get in.

The door closes. The car starts moving. My phone explodes with notifications, Elena, my mother, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack,

I turn it off.

"Where to?" the driver asks.

I look out the window. Watch the venue disappear behind us. Watch eighteen months of planning and eight thousand dollars of dress and three years of relationship vanish in the rearview mirror.

"Anywhere," I say.

He drives.