The One With the Vows

Thursday, 3 May 2001

With the wedding four weeks away, Monica and Chandler struggle to write their vows, lean on the other four for help, and Chandler finally passes off a copy of Monica's as his own.

What happens

• Monica reminds Chandler the wedding is four weeks off and hands him paper to write his vows, and Chandler decides from how fast she writes that she must love him more than he loves her.
• Chandler asks Joey and Ross for help and gets nothing he can use, beyond Ross recalling the promise he once made to Carol.
• Monica summons Rachel and Phoebe as an emergency and admits that all she has produced so far is a drawing of herself in the wedding dress.
• Ross and Rachel each offer an opening about knowing from the start, Chandler and Monica both reject the line as untrue, and Phoebe suggests writing instead about what they taught each other.
• In a clip from an earlier season, Monica teaches Chandler that there are seven erogenous zones rather than three.
• In a clip from an earlier season, Chandler proposes to Monica that the two of them have a baby together at forty if neither has married, then panics when she asks why he assumes she will be single.
• In clips from earlier seasons, Chandler accidentally tells Monica he loves her, asks to move in with her, and proposes on one knee after she breaks down mid-speech.
• At the coffee house the others compare notes, and Ross explains that Chandler threw him and Joey out because Joey's suggestions were crude while Phoebe reports Monica is getting nowhere.
• Phoebe argues that the marriage will pull Monica and Chandler away from the group toward kids and the suburbs, and Joey admits he does not want anything to change.
• Monica and Chandler let the others read the finished vows, the reactions expose Monica's as heartfelt and Chandler's as a string of jokes, and Chandler rewrites his by stealing Monica's and swapping the name.