As the height of wedding season approaches, some people are turning to artificial intelligence for help with their hitches. Yes, ChatGPT can spin those unremarkable wedding vows into something more poetic, or add jokes to that toast.
Turning to a chatbot to express your deepest love may feel cold, lazy, or even dystopian. But those harnessing the tech say it can help break through writer’s block triggered by the high expectations set for a special day. Some people are becoming comfortable using AI in the most intimate aspects of their lives.
For some, using ChatGPT for help with weighty words like wedding vows can seem like a joke, but it can spin out phrases that defy expectations. Michelle Albert, who lives in Seattle, says she asked the bot to write vows, expecting something funny. Instead, the output was sweet, although also generic. It gestured broadly to her fiancée’s intelligence, kindness, and beauty, and threw in clichés like, “I love you more than words can say.”
Still, the unexpected fluency piqued Albert’s interest and pushed her to start writing personal vows. “The best use case for me is just inspiration,” says Albert. She also used ChatGPT to develop ideas for how to have difficult conversations with family and friends about downsizing her wedding, meaning some people she loves won’t be invited. She and her fiancée also used the bot to help draw up an itinerary for their five-day honeymoon in Hawaii.
Joy, a popular wedding-planning website and app, now has an AI tool built on ChatGPT meant to help defeat writer’s block. Its drop-down menu lets people pick from a slew of options, including writing speeches and toasts, drafting thank you notes, and crafting punny wedding hashtags, like or “#MyOhMaui” for a wedding in Hawaii or “#SailingToMarriageOnTheHighSeas” for one given in the style of a pirate.
Vishal Joshi, Joy’s CEO and cofounder, says he understands the initial apprehension some may feel about using AI for such personal touches. “Are we trying to make something which is so emotional and so personal—are we attempting to automate it?” Joshi says. “We had that struggle.”
But some Joy users appear to have gotten over any qualms. Generating vows and toasts have become the most popular functions of the AI features since they rolled out in March, Joshi says. He sees that as fitting with the fact that long before AI came on the scene, many people struggled to articulate their feelings on a wedding day. “Getting those emotions onto paper is so much harder than any one of us acknowledges,” Joshi says.
To generate speeches, Joy prompts a user to give details of a memorable story about the couple and their relationship, like how they met or when a person first met their future in-laws. For vows, the app asks a person to highlight what they love most about their partner. They can then choose the style of delivery, directing the system to generate something that might come from a friend, Shakespeare, or a pessimistic ex. One vow suggestion in the style of the playwright begins: “To stroll the beach in front of us, I’d give the world to share, thy values of repose and revelry matched with mine, that is so rare.”
Like with anything a ChatGPT-style bot spouts, AI-crafted vows or speeches can include tales that may not be true. In WIRED’s tests, it could take several attempts and edits before ChatGPT included enough details about the couple or a memory to make something that felt personal and authentic enough to read out in front of guests and witnesses.