Some couples who want their wedding vows to feel extra personal, romantic, and intimate choose to write their vows themselves. One couple did exactly that because they thought it would make their ceremony more “meaningful.” Given that they made this decision together, the bride was expecting her husband to put a considerable amount of effort into his vows. Then, on their wedding night, she found out the groom actually used ChatGPT to write them.
The devastated bride wrote in to Slate’s Dear Prudence advice column and explained that she and her husband were together for five years before getting married.
The bride put a lot of effort into writing her vows.
The pair had spent two years preparing for their wedding day, and during the planning process they agreed that they would write their own wedding vows.
The bride took this task very seriously. Leading up to their special day, she spent an “immense amount of time” reflecting on their relationship, brainstorming, and writing her vows, she wrote in the letter. She admitted that her standards were high and she understood that her husband might not spend as much time on his vows. However, she was still “really looking forward to hearing what he wrote.”
Initially, she thought his vows were ‘beautiful.’
During their wedding ceremony, everything seemed perfect. The couple exchanged their vows, and the bride got a bit emotional because her husband’s vows were “beautiful.” The romantic ceremony made her “tear up.” But during the reception, she actually cried – and not in a good way.
She found out her husband didn’t actually write his vows.
Sure, writing vows can be quite daunting. But because the bride and groom had agreed that they would write their own vows, the bride trusted her husband to follow through on that promise. It was only during the best man’s toast that she realized her husband’s vows were not actually personal. They were written by ChatGPT.
At first, when the best man made a comment about the groom using ChatGPT to write his vows, the bride thought he was joking. He later clarified, however, that it was not a joke: The groom really did rely on ChatGPT for his wedding vows “at the last minute.”
Why did the best man even mention this? Apparently, it was to make the point that the groom was “lucky” to “find such a ‘creative and talented’ wife since he is ‘lacking’ in that department.”
Once they finished the toasts, the bride “ran to the restroom and cried.”
She was hurt her husband kept that from her.
While, yes, she was “extremely hurt” that her husband used “AI to write something so intimate,” the fact that he wasn’t honest about it hurt her even more. Her husband told her he was “too overwhelmed” to write vows and ended up using ChatGPT because “he didn’t want to disappoint” her. But throughout the rest of the reception, the bride felt “distracted and hurt.”
They spent their wedding night arguing about the situation. “I told him that I wish he had just been honest with me and that his lying was far more hurtful to me than not writing his own vows,” the bride wrote.
During their conversations about it, the bride “asked him whether he ever planned on telling (her) or if he would have taken that secret to the grave.” He said he didn’t know.
The advice columnist thinks the husband’s ‘heart was in the right place.’
Slate’s advice columnist acknowledged that having an “unsavory memory” from your wedding day isn’t great. But she also said the bride is “WAY overthinking this” situation.
The bride’s husband clearly wanted to write special wedding vows, the advice columnist suggested, but he “needed some help writing something that articulated his feelings better than he felt he could.”
“I am glad that it sounds like you have a thoughtful partner who holds you in such high regard that he enlisted help, even if it was from a robot,” the columnist added. “These are the times we live in!”
