Future Ted’s voiceover opens the episode talking about how people tend to freak out on their wedding day. Barney is shown being pulled off a window ledge, ranting about how he needs his cornflower blue tie. Robin, usually the level headed one of the bunch is near to tears as she reveals she “Can’t go through with this!” to Ted. Robin explains that she feels it’s bad luck that Barney never found the locket. She says that she wants to be with “the guy who comes through for me… Against all odds, finds my locket.”

Ted gives the locket he had retrieved earlier (as a wedding present – he claims) to Barney to present to Robin. Robin guesses that Ted actually tracked it down. Robin is starting to think that maybe she is making a mistake and should be marrying Ted. Robin goes on to tell him that she feels that everything she knows about Barney and every romatic gesture he has ever made has been based in lies. She feels she should be with the guy who found her locket, the guy who stole her a blue French horn. Ted stops her in her tracks, claiming that he doesn’t love her “like that” anymore. He explains that if she thinks he would interfere with the love between Robin and Ted, that Robin doesn’t really know him at all.

Robin doesn’t feel that she and Barney make sense, but Ted explains that love doesn’t have to make sense. She finally admits that she is being “insane” about all this, but it is a ruse to bolt for the door. As she runs, she bumps (quite literally) into the Mother. The Mother tells her to take 3 deep breaths and reflect.

In the meantime, Barney is working on his vows because he has been writing them for months and can’t “get it right.” Lily and Marshall offer their advice as vow experts. Barney laughs in their faces, claiming that they have broken every vow they made on their wedding day. He gives specific examples, in flashback form. Lily and Marshall lament the loss of their young romantic idealism.

Marshall pulls Lily into the chapel before the ceremony and they offer one another renewed, more realistic, vows. They realize that there will never be just one set of vows to take because life never stops changing. Barney sees this and it dawns on him that vows can be broken with the love of a marriage still intact.

As Robin has been taking her deep breaths, Barney has approached. He makes one vow that is more important than all the ridiculous things he had been writing down. He vows to be honest with her, always. He tells her that Ted was the one that found the locket. They kiss and we know that the wedding is back on.

The episode caps with the wedding, including flashes on the parent’s smiling faces, a recall to Robin’s antagonism of Patrice, and (or course) a ring bear. Marshall also gets to deliver the final Slap.

While Robin freaking out over Barney not having found her locket seems a little eccentric for her, it was a good segue to the important message of Love conquering all. I was especially fond of how we see the realistic take on Marshall and Lily’s marriage. It’s not perfect and they are not perfect- as Ted reflects in the summary- but they are willing to work together and grow together. I think that is a great message to send.