June 15, 2008

• On this day…

  22 years ago, I married my best friend. My love, my soul mate, — my destiny. 

  I’m not sure if I’ve talked about my weddings before. I’ve had a fairly unique experience of having two weddings to the same man, no divorces. Confused? Well here’s how it all happened.

  Hubby and I met while he was stationed at Davis Monthan in Tucson (where I grew up). We met right after my 18th birthday (luckily for him – ha ha) and dated, intending to just have a good time until he left in December for tech school. I think it happened sometime in October … we fell in love. By the end of the first week of December we were engaged. The wedding we had planned was a fairly large church wedding. The date was set for September of the following year, after hubby was done with school and before he had to report to his next assignment in Phoenix. Long about March we got some unpleasant news. He had been “diverted” from Luke AFB in Phoenix to a detachment in northern Germany. Here was the bad news. His report date was October 12th. less than a month after the wedding was planned. This meant I wouldn’t have time to get on his orders, get a passport in my married name, get tickets and all that jazz. We found if he went ahead to Germany, it would be 6 – 12 months before I could join him, IF I was even allowed to join him. Since I had planned to visit him in May when my spring semester ended, we decided a justice of the peace ceremony would solve our problems. We wouldn’t announce it to anyone, just our parents would know. The church wedding would continue as planned in the fall.

  So when I finished up my courses for that semester I headed out for wonderful Biloxi, MS. By then hubby had made some great friends there, and I quickly grew to love them as well. When we were ready to get the legal ball rolling, our friends had a fit when they found out we were planning to get married in the court house. They protested that they were not able to attend the Tucson wedding, and wanted to see us married right. Well… I had just come from 5 1/2  solid months of wedding planning and believe me I wanted NOTHING to do with planning yet another wedding. These wonderful friends stated they would do everything, I wouldn’t have to lift a finger! Hah! Sure. Yeah, OK. So we finally agreed, we would have a small backyard wedding. Once we got our license of course.

  That, proved more difficult than you might have expected. See in Mississippi, you can legally get married at age 14 with your parents permission. At 18, with no parents, no luck. You had to be 19 to get married without parental permission. The problem? I didn’t turn 19 for another month. We went to see I think 3 different judges in different districts until we finally found one that agreed to grant us a license as long as I  (get this, you’ll love THIS) ….   had a notarize note from my mommy and daddy. Yep. I needed a note from my mommy to get married.

  So we got the license, and sure enough, our fantastic friends did EVERYTHING. They got me a dress, shoes, the works.

  

  The made the bouquets, the cake and did the decorating.

  

  They found a preacher.

  

  They set up music, got refreshments for a small reception, complete with wedding presents (like what they had done wasn’t already enough).

   

  

  

  They took the pictures, rented a honeymoon hotel on the beach - you name it, they did it. It was the perfect little miniature wedding. To this day I am eternally grateful to them for making our wedding such a special event.

  22 years later, I’m still in love. We’ve been through oh so much. But it’s been oh so good. Of all the choices I’ve made in my life, marrying hubby has to be one of the best.  

  

  Happy Anniversary my love.

  ---

  Question of the day: What’s the nicest thing friends have done for you?

  The results for the last question of the day were: Potato Salad 3, Cole Slaw 2, both 1 and neither 1.

  • 12:35 am
  • 19 Comments