I’m curious if there has been any research. Are couples who renew their vows actually more likely to stay together?
I see some issues with sample biasing and timepoints… but has this ever been looked into?
Doubt it. Seal and Heidi Klum re-newed their vows at a full wedding ceremony and reception every year right up until the divorce.
My wife and I renewed our vows and haven’t divorced. So we’re at one anecdote apiece.
I don’t know how someone would research the question. There’s no paperwork to renew one’s vows.
I am flummoxed by vow renewals. Completely baffled as to why anyone would want/need to do that.
Please pardon me if this came across as thread-shitting. It certainly was not intended that way.
Well, some partners renew their vows after one or both of them have broken them.
Which could indicate future trouble, especially if the renewal is done hastily, with a mind to patching up the damage (aka rug-sweeping.)
I suggested my parents renew their vows during a recent discussion about how terrible their wedding was because of family member take overs and whatever. It wasn’t what either of them wanted but they were married in the end so they thought it didn’t matter. Still, as I’m planning my own ceremony (and with an assertiveness that my mom lacked; I have no problems telling people to go fuck themselves) I see all the things she feels like she missed out on. My suggestion wasn’t so much about the vows themselves, but an excuse to have a second go at the wedding my mom never really got to have.
I think it’s possible some vow renewals are a way to sort of make up for a shitty experience the first time.
Better than having a baby to make everything right again somehow, I suppose.
Well, my wife nixed my suggestion of a Star Trek themed wedding, but when I protested, she vaguely suggested that one day we might renew our vows that way.
Come to think of it, that day has yet to arrive.
Anyone have any non-anecdotal facts?
I fear that vow-renewal research may have been neglected by the scientific community. But one can find a few studies if one goes to Google Scholar and enters “vow renewal”.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10417940209373223
http://spr.sagepub.com/content/12/2/177.short
Can’t draw too many conclusions from these, IMHO.
SHE wanted the Star Trek themed wedding? Even if you’re Sheldon Cooper, she’s a keeper. 
I have no data for the OP, but I am thinking about surprising my wife with a renewal of our vows. My challenges are (a) finding the time to do it, and (b) pulling it all together without her finding out…no small feat.
When my wife and I decided to marry over twenty years ago, we had no money and were laden with student loan debt. For that and a number of other reasons that even I can no longer justify, I decided that we’d have a simple beachfront ceremony with no family from either side present. It was nice, such as it was, but I’ve always known it wasn’t the wedding my wife wanted; she settled, and I’ve always felt badly about it.
In the almost two and a half decades since, my wife has never mentioned being disappointed with the ceremony, and even jokes about it from time to time, but making up for it remains a tick on my list of things to do for her before we’re too much older.
So, to those who’ve asked “why would anyone renew their marriage vows?” mine is one reason.
My mother had always wanted my parents to renew their vows on their 25th anniversary. But around year 19 the pastor who had originally married them suffered a stroke, and they really had wanted him to preside over the renewal. So they rescheduled the ceremony six years early and renewed their vows on their 19th anniversary.
Which kind of pissed me off, because at the age of 16, I had gone away for the summer on a short term project overseas with my church and they didn’t tell me about it until I got back. So I missed it.
Anyway, they’ve just celebrated their 47th anniversary and are still going strong.
I think this is pretty much the most correct answer.
If there’s no record of everybody that does this (it’s not an officially recognized undertaking… indeed there may not even be a commonly accepted description of what is/isn’t “renewing your vows”), there’s no formal way to establish the number of times it happens.
The only way you could get the information is from surveying the population en masse, seeing how many people say they’ve renewed their vows, and then comparing against how many of those formally divorced subsequently… and there’s no particular reason for that data set to exist. There’s no income that could be generated from having that information, that I can think of anyway, and no social policy that would be made more effective by having that figure.
I’m just thinking out loud here, but I think it’s safe to say that people who are renewing vows have been through some kind of rough patch. Therefore, they may be comparable to people who seek out marriage counseling.
If we could then divide the people who seek out marriage counseling into two groups - the “counseling saved our marriage” group and the “counseling revealed that we should split up” group, we could treat the first group as being similar to those who have renewed vows. They went through their rough patch, took steps to address the issues and decided to continue with the marriage. (I know that some people do literally go through marriage counseling and renew their vows coming out of it.)
I’m not sure if those numbers are any easier to find. I remember a thread years ago in which we had trouble showing whether marriage counselors are truly better than going it alone because there weren’t good controlled studies. But maybe it can point someone in a direction that could be useful.
Sigh. I guess there’s no reliable facts. I’ll jump in with my own opinions as well. 
I guess that vow renewals come from two motivations. Resetting after a rough patch, and reaffirming something that is great. I suspect the latter happens much more often than the former, but I can’t defend that. I thought if there was a study on this, the basic problem would be that vow renewals aren’t random, they are more likely to be happy stable relationships. I would think that generally people who are renewing vows are more happy and content with their marriage and are less likely to separate subsequently.
I’d say the same although because I’ve never known a couple personally who have renewed their vows, I can only go by my motivation.
I liken those who consider renewing their vows after a rough patch to those who believe having a child will save their marriage, in that I suspect they ultimately end up separating/divorcing anyway.
In my case, my marriage has been good, bordering on remarkable really. My wife and I simply click, always have, so for us it will probably be more a reaffirmation than a renewing.
My wife and I got married ten years ago on a Starbucks barista and college senior budget.
Ten years later, and now we’re making the kind of money you need to throw a BITCHIN’ party. She’s brought up the idea of renewing our vows and presenting new wedding rings to each other, to replace the pitiful little things that were all I could afford back then.
I kinda like the small, cheap wedding rings we wear because it reminds me of how far we’ve come, but I can totally see where she’s coming from too.