When Jade Foster-Jerrett married Dean in 2015, the couple decided that if they were still together in 10 years’ time, they would renew their vows. “We always said that it felt like a big milestone if we ever made it – which, luckily, we did.” This month, they held a ceremony in the forest behind their home, colourful bunting fluttering in the wind, with a Mary Poppins impersonator emerging from the trees to surprise their guests and officiate. “We love to have a laugh,” she says.
Mary Poppins was Foster-Jerrett’s favourite film when she was a child, and she used to watch it with her father, who died in 2020. “We wanted to mark him not being there,” says the 42-year-old children’s entertainer from Romford, London. Her best friend, who was a bridesmaid at her first wedding, did a reading, and the couple gave their 22 guests kites made of paper studded with poppy seeds that they could plant later at home. Afterwards, they returned home for food and drinks with their guests, including their 12-year-old son and Foster-Jerrett’s 19-year-old son from her first marriage. Since the ceremony, she and Dean, a 49-year-old local government officer, “are closer than ever. We realised how much more in love we are with each other.”
Foster-Jerrett and her husband are one of the many couples choosing to take part in vow renewals. It’s something that celebrities have been doing with gusto this summer. Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz renewed their vows in August, just three years after their original wedding. Guy Ritchie and his wife, Jacqui Ainsley, also renewed their vows in August at Stonehenge after 10 years of marriage. Other celebrities who have said “I do” again include singer Beyoncé and rapper Jay-Z; musician Justin Timberlake and actor Jessica Biel; actors Viola Davis and Julius Tennon; former talkshow host Ellen DeGeneres and actor Portia de Rossi; and the Biebers, model Hailey and singer Justin. Brooklyn’s own parents, David and Victoria Beckham, renewed their vows in 2006.
The ceremonies, where couples reaffirm their love for one another, can be officiated by anyone as they’re not legally binding, so they might ask friends, family – or indeed Mary Poppins tribute acts.
Susanna Abse, a couples therapist and author of Tell Me the Truth About Love, says one of the main reasons couples decide to renew their vows is that they didn’t have the wedding they wanted the first time round. “There’s so much buildup and expectation, and a lot of fantasy around it,” she says. “There is family, people to please.” Doing it all over again can be an attempt to reclaim the day. “They feel they’ve got more control over how the whole thing goes, and it is about them and not about other people’s ideas of how things should be.”
For her first wedding to Dean, Foster-Jerrett, who also works as a celebrant, felt she needed to conform to how a blushing bride should look, with a long dress and her hair pinned up. “This time I wore my dream dress, which was gothic and lacy, with some Dr Martens. I felt the best I’ve ever felt.”
John Moody, 74, a retired production manager from Torquay, Devon, decided to throw his wife, Jenny, 78, a surprise vow renewal in March for their 50th anniversary. Partly, this was an attempt to “make up” for their first wedding in 1975. “It was a register office job, the normal 10 minutes in and out, because we didn’t have a lot of money,” he says. Working up to the renewal was “a bit difficult”, he says: “I’ve never lied so much in my life.”
He convinced Jenny, a retired credit controller, that she had to get a new dress so they could have an anniversary photoshoot on Babbacombe Downs, overlooking the sea. On the day, when she saw the guests waiting for them and realised what was really happening, “she looked gobsmacked. I said: ‘Don’t hit me!’ And she said: ‘No, I’m not going to do it here.’” Afterwards, they took the party to the nearby home of their 47-year-old daughter, Nicola, to celebrate with a meal and champagne.
For David Smith, 62, who is on sabbatical from his job as a consultant, his vow renewal in 2022 was a chance to celebrate with people who couldn’t attend his wedding a decade earlier. “We were living in Macedonia and got married there. Although some family came, not all of them could. We always had an idea that we would do something in the UK.”
Smith is originally from Beckenham, London and now lives in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria. In 2022, he was based in Ghana and returned to England for the ceremony, but things didn’t quite go to plan. A few days before, the queen died and then his wife, Sabina, 62, tested positive for Covid. The couple, who are Christians, decided to change the ceremony, which was going to be held at a church in Harrow Weald, London, and officiated by a vicar, into a memorial for the queen. “Sabina clearly wasn’t going to be able to attend the service,” says Smith.
The vow renewal took place the week after; it was a much more stripped-back affair than what they were originally planning, during a normal church service, with no guests. Smith’s two sons from his first marriage had attended the revamped memorial, but were unable to make the new date. “Normally, there’s three ladies and a dog,” he says, “and there were three ladies and a dog, plus us. We were happy to get it done. It felt more intimate. When you’re making your renewal, the primary purpose is you’re doing it in the eyes of God.” The couple celebrated by going for lunch with the vicar and his wife.
There’s a scepticism, though, that comes with the news of vow renewals. The Daily Mail once called vow renewals the “kiss of death for your marriage”. Musician Seal and model Heidi Klum renewed their vows every year during their seven-year marriage before separating in 2012. The singer later said that the renewals “turned into a little bit of a circus”. Rapper Kanye West and reality TV star Kim Kardashian renewed their vows at home in Los Angeles in 2019 for their five-year anniversary and went on to divorce a few years later.
Katie Price and her third husband, Kieran Hayler, renewed their vows three times in three years, after having two weddings in 2013. One month after their last vow renewal in 2017, Price announced she was divorcing Hayler after he had an affair.
Abse says some vow renewals are because of what she calls a “breach” in the relationship. “There might have been an affair or something that has left them both feeling like their relationship came under a lot of threat. Things have gone really wrong, and then there’s a feeling of wanting to restart, to put something behind you as a couple that has been really disruptive to your relationship.”
The late Black Sabbath rocker Ozzy Osbourne renewed his vows with his wife, Sharon, in Las Vegas in 2017, a year after his affair with Michelle Pugh, his former hairstylist, was revealed. “This is a new beginning,” Osbourne told Hello! magazine afterwards. “I think that everyone should reaffirm their marriage.”
“It’s easy to mock people who do it,” says Sarah Haywood, a wedding planner based in London. “Even if it’s because you’ve gone through a rough patch, and you’ve decided to come out the other end and remain together, and reaffirm why you’re staying together, that’s also pretty powerful.”
Carol Smith, an independent celebrant from Somerset, says: “People are quite cynical when we see the rich and famous having them. But the couples that I have worked with – all of them – are very much in love and very committed.” Smith has noticed a surge in vow renewals over the years. When she first started working as a celebrant in 2016, vow renewals weren’t really on her clients’ radar, but now they make up 50% of the ceremonies she officiates. “They’re smaller [than the original wedding], they’re much more intimate, they’re much more meaningful.”
Gilly Cant, 58, from Herstmonceux, East Sussex, told her husband, Ian, 64, a CCTV and security engineer, that she wanted to renew their vows – but she didn’t tell him where the ceremony was going to be or who would be there. The couple married 10 years ago in their friend’s garden in the same village. This month, she surprised him by taking him back to the exact same spot to renew their vows, between two oak trees, overlooking the South Downs with the same registrar who officiated their wedding.
“I’d got us two rings,” says Cant, who wore the same dress that she wore at the first wedding. “He couldn’t make up his mind on a wedding ring at the time. He just bought a really cheap one when we got married.” On the back, she had engraved “It must be love”, a reference to the Madness song that was played on their wedding night in 2015.
There were no other guests at the renewal. “It’s something that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing in front of other people, even if they were our friends and family, because it wasn’t about doing it for other people,” says Cant. “The wedding is a big celebration with family, and this was very personal. It was about us renewing our love for each other and the promises that we made 10 years ago.” Cant’s son and daughter from her first marriage, and Ian’s two sons and daughter from his first marriage, were all “happy that we did it”.
The couple have been through plenty of ups and downs during their relationship – Cant was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, four years after they first got together, and underwent a double mastectomy. “When I was diagnosed, I was 45, and my goal was to make it to 50 years old. When you’ve had cancer, your life goals are quite short. I’ve lost so many friends who should still be here. Being able to celebrate 10 years of being married – I really didn’t know whether that would ever happen. So, I’ve been really lucky.” The ceremony was also a chance to remember her father and Ian’s best man, who have both since died. They went for a Turkish meal afterwards. “It was absolutely perfect,” says Cant, who now runs Flat Friends UK, a charity for women who don’t have breast reconstruction after a mastectomy.
Instead of throwing a party for her 25th wedding anniversary, Catherine Dall’Occo, 58, from Calne, Wiltshire, decided to renew her vows with her husband, Kym, 65, instead. They were keen to include some people who weren’t around for their first wedding in 2000 – their daughters, Poppy, 24, and Emily, 22. Their children, she says, “wrote their own vows to us as parents and from them as daughters. Sometimes you just need these magic moments to reassure you that all is well in the world.”
Dall’Occo, who manages a racing club, and her husband, a special needs school driver, took part this month in a handfasting ceremony, a Celtic ritual in which the couple’s hands are tied together to symbolise how their lives are bound together, at the Temple of Minerva in Bath in front of just 12 guests. They used the same celebrant who had conducted her father’s funeral the year before. “We all cried from start to finish. It felt very deep and meaningful. I don’t think either of us had anticipated the intense feeling that you get from standing there with your loved one, reminding them of how you feel and everything that’s been wonderful but also tough about the journey.”
Vow renewals serve as a welcome reminder of everything a couple has achieved while they were married. “It’s made us appreciate more what we’ve done over the years,” says Moody. “We’ve travelled, we’ve moved. It’s made us look forward to the next few years.”
“It was really nice to reflect back – a lot happens in 10 years,” says Foster-Jerrett. “It made us remember why we did what we did,” adds Cant. “It’s made the bond even stronger.”
And it seems once you’ve renewed your vows, it’s hard to stop. Back home after her woodland ceremony, Foster-Jerrett had just finished tidying up her garden from the celebration that day, when she turned to her husband: “I was like: ‘Another 10 years?’ I would definitely do it again. Hopefully we make it.”
Some people featured in this article responded to a community callout. You can contribute to open callouts here