Funny wedding vows for a spouse at a courthouse ceremony

I promise to love you even though you insisted we could 'just wing it' at the DMV last year, which resulted in three separate trips and me stress-eating an entire sleeve of crackers in the waiting room. Clearly, your confidence in bureaucratic settings knows no bounds, which is why I'm letting you hold the parking validation today.

I vow to always laugh at your jokes, even the ones you've told forty-seven times, because the way your face lights up when you deliver the punchline makes every rerun worth it. I will also pretend I don't notice when you laugh at your own jokes before you finish telling them.

I promise to be your partner in all things: joint tax filing, arguing about whose turn it is to take out the recycling, and pretending we understand what our retirement accounts are doing. I will split the last slice of pizza with you, even when I really, really don't want to.

Today, in this fluorescent-lit room with its inspirational courthouse posters about civic duty, I choose you. Not because it's convenient or because we already paid the filing fee, but because loving you is the easiest and best decision I've ever made—and I once impulse-bought a robot vacuum that I still brag about.

I promise to love you even though you've never forgiven me for the DMV incident, which I maintain was only two trips, not three, and the crackers were communal. I vow to continue having unearned confidence in my ability to navigate bureaucracy, because someone in this relationship has to believe we'll get the parking validated.

I vow to keep telling you my jokes, even the ones you've heard a million times, because your fake laugh has become so convincing that I honestly can't tell the difference anymore. Also, I laugh at my own jokes because they're genuinely funny, and I won't apologize for that.

I promise to be your partner in all things: pretending to understand our tax forms, taking out the recycling only when directly asked, and nodding seriously when the financial advisor talks. I will always offer you the last slice of pizza, secure in the knowledge that you'll suggest we split it, which was my plan all along.

Today, in this magnificently unglamorous government building with its suspicious coffee smell and someone's cousin taking photos on an iPhone, I choose you. Not because we're already here or because the judge has another appointment in twenty minutes, but because you're my favorite person to stand in line with—and life is basically just a series of lines we're lucky to stand in together.