By ANNA JANE GROSSMAN
Published: September 17, 2010

UP until recently, the wedding industry would have you believe that you had only one chance at the perfect day. So spare no expense, be a princess for a day, invite 200 friends, and let it all pass by in a blur.

Rare are the newlyweds who imagine becoming a repeat customer when it comes to tulle or letter-pressed R.S.V.P. cards. But is that really any way to run a business? Does Apple make a product that you don’t want to buy twice?

The vow renewal option might require you to be publicly adored while also taking the opportunity to graciously adore your adorer. You might have to wear something really great and hire a photographer. Also, you might need a hankie.

“Everyone cried,” said Ramona Singer, one of the housewives whose lives are chronicled in the Boswellian “The Real Housewives New York City” on Bravo. “That is really important to mention. Every person cried. Every man and woman.” Last December, Ms. Singer, a New York jewelry designer, and her jewelry-businessman husband of 17 years, Mario Singer, renewed their vows in front of 70 friends and family members at a ceremony at the Pierre hotel in Manhattan. Ms. Singer, wearing a custom-made white satin gown trimmed with crystals and ostrich feathers, told Mr. Singer that she loved him more now than the first time she married him. He compared her to a ray of sunshine and to a rock.

Afterward, everyone retired to the antipasto and lamb stations and Ms. Singer posed for photographers from Life & Style magazine along with her daughter and dog, who wore matching dresses. “You know, it wasn’t done as a fluff thing,” she said. “When someone does something for real, you feel it. You feel the vibrations. You could feel the love between my husband and I.” Both posted their vows on Bravo.com blogs and fielded comments.

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon did it earlier this year at their Beverly Hills Estate. This was the second vow renewal for the couple in as many years of marriage. To mark the occasion, he presented her with a diamond-and-sapphire-encrusted Ring Pop-shaped ring. Heidi Klum and Seal, who wed five years ago, give a vow-renewal celebration each year of their marriage; the events have become a kind of springtime version of the Ms. Klum’s yearly Halloween parties. Last year, she had a “white trash” theme. Guests, dressed in their trailer park finest, gathered while a cornrowed Ms. Klum and a mullet-wearing Seal were joined in matrimony again. An Elvis impersonator officiated. This year the vow renewal was done in Mexico and had a wedding theme: all the guests wore tuxedos and white dresses.

Jennifer Lopez and her husband, Marc Anthony, renewed theirs this year as well. This was a second vow-renewal ceremony for Mr. Anthony. His first one was to the former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres in 2002. The two separated the next year.

It seems that restating vows is not a panacea for the evils of divorce, and may even bring into question the sturdiness of the original utterances. The first time, you mean it, but if there’s the chance that down the line you’ll really really mean it, then does that change the way you might have felt the first time?

Then again, perhaps the desire to reaffirm commitment is a healthy reaction to the changing state of marriage.

The path to divorce is increasingly well trod and holds less stigma than it did a generation ago. What’s more, we live longer than many of our married ancestors, which can mean more years and opportunity for failure. The result is, arguably, an increasingly delicate kind of union that perhaps needs a certain degree of coddling.

“It’s an institution that might now need renewing,” said W. Bradford Wilcox of the National Marriage Project. “People have these blowout weddings, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with having a long marriage and maintaining it. A vow renewal can be a signifier to oneself and to the larger community that something has endured and that there is a commitment to keep it going.”

Indeed, modern marriage also requires more communication than in unions dictated by gender roles. “What keeps a marriage going today is so different than in the past,” said Stephanie Coontz, author of “Marriage: A History” and the director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. “In other times, couples didn’t need to renew their vows unless they were quite exceptional in the way they saw their relationship.

“Women were dependent on men,” she continued. “He had economic leverage, and she had to keep the marriage working by either changing her husband or changing herself. Today, we come to marriage expecting it to be truly fair and even and to negotiate in a way that didn’t happen before.”

And what better reason to have a party. Sites like BnBFinder.com have begun offering a “vow renewal packages” search option organized by state. On Royal Caribbean cruises, couples who renew their vows onboard are issued a special vow renewal certificate. The Celebrant Foundation and Institute, a nonprofit organization that provides officiants and creates ceremonies “from the womb to the tomb” has found a niche: it provides people who will conduct catered ceremonies for the non-legally binding events. They’ve sent “celebrants” to officiate more than 200 vow-renewal ceremonies in the last year, up from an average of 25 in past years.

Eric Seaberg, assistant general manager of the event space Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn routinely sells vow-renewal packages priced the same as wedding packages. “People come in because they had such a wonderful experience getting married the first time that they want to do it all over,” he said. “Why let go of the good times?” The hall has roughly one vow-renewal ceremony each week, with an increasing number of them held by couples married under 10 years.

“Usually they do pretty much whatever they did the first time, but this time they can have people who couldn’t come and can make it bigger and better than before,” he said. “Your wedding is one of the most special days in your life but there’s no reason you can’t experience that every year.”

(Source: A version of this article appeared in print on September 19, 2010, on page ST12 of the New York edition.)