37 FramesThere’s a phrase we hear too often about marriage: settling down.
But what if marriage isn’t about settling at all? What if it’s about taking off?
The vows that move us most aren’t about comfort, stability, or ticking life’s boxes. They’re about a shared hunger for the unknown. The kind of promises that say: I don’t want to stop here. I want to go everywhere with you.
Vows That Begin, Not End
Marriage is not the end of liberty … it’s the beginning of it. The couples we’ve celebrated with in Japan, Australia, the US, and beyond rarely see marriage as a cage. They see it as an accelerant.
The bride who wanted her vows under cherry blossoms in Nagano wasn’t looking to freeze time. She wanted to run headlong into impermanence, to promise love in a world that never stops shifting.
The groom who stood at dawn before Mt. Fuji didn’t want to say “we’ve arrived.” He wanted to say, “this is where we take off.”
The best vows don’t chain you to one place. They fling the map wide open.
The Adventure We Sign Up For
We’ve watched couples promise each other not just love but jet lag, delayed trains, lost passports, and late-night conbini snacks. Promises not of perfection, but of the imperfect thrill of navigating it together.
Because marriage is not a vacation. It’s an expedition.
It’s long rambunctious nights in cities where you don’t speak the language. It’s setting up camp in the rain. It’s stumbles and laughter and finding yourselves on streets you never planned to walk. It’s the grit and the wonder.
When couples choose a destination wedding or elopement, that’s what they’re really choosing: to say yes to a life that doesn’t just happen to them, but one they actively seek, side by side.
Why These Vows Matter More Than Ever
We live in a world that glorifies settling. The job, the house, the mortgage, the box-ticking life plan.
But the couples who find us? They’re rarely interested in boxes. They want the edges, the margins, the wild spaces. They want vows that read more like a compass than a contract.
And maybe that’s the secret … love that’s alive is love that’s curious. That keeps asking what’s next. That refuses to confuse comfort with connection.
Final Reflection
Whenever couples ask what to say in their vows, we tell them … skip the clichés. Just always speak from the heart.
But perhaps don’t write about settling down.
Write about taking flight. About the wild, unplanned, breathtaking adventure of choosing each other.
About saying: Yes. With you, I want it all. The beauty. The chaos. The unimaginable. The everything.
Because in the end, the greatest promise isn’t about safety. It’s about choosing your co-pilot for life’s grand, unpredictable, ridiculous adventure.
📋 Planning | 📸 Photography | 🎥 Film by @37frames
✈️ For the couples who don’t settle down, but take off.
37 Frames
