The Wedding

September 23rd is almost here. Forty years ago, I thought it never would come! We were planning our wedding, the invitations had been sent out in early August, the cake was ordered, the tuxedos were picked out and the ministers were notified. The wedding gown was hanging my closet at home and we were trying to figure out what to do with Nancy's hair.

The entire week before the wedding the weather was unseasonably cold. It was rainy, cloudy, drizzley and generally a horrible week. I was trying not to look at the weather reports on TV because I didn't want to think about all the rain.

That Saturday morning dawned with a beautiful blue sky. The rain had moved on and everything was beautiful! The grass was a beautiful shade of emerald green, the streets were washed clean by all the rain and the temperature was in the 70s. A most beautiful day for a wedding.

Nancy and I hurried down to the hairdresser's. We had gone down the afternoon before and had her hair washed and set. It refused to dry. It was just too thick and long. We decided to let it dry overnight. On Saturday, we hurried down to the salon. It was still damp. The hairdresser decided to put it up in a bun. It was too heavy. The wedding was due to begin at 2:00 pm. We didn't have much time left. Finally, after using almost every bobby pin in the shop, she managed to get it up and by the time we put the headpiece on, it looked like it was in a bun.

Nancy and I sped to the bakery to pick up the cake. It was beautiful. We carried it to the car and drove to the church. As we were carrying it up the steps to the educational building, we almost dropped it! We had to put it down while we sat and laughed. Anyone driving by would think we were two crazy ladies in shorts and sandals and one of the crazy ladies had a wedding headpiece on her head!

Back when we had discussed tuxedos, Dad said he was wearing his black suit. We didn't need to get him a tux. He fought a tough battle but he finally agreed to get the tux. As everyone was getting dressed, we discovered that Dad's tux didn't have a bowtie! He went over to the grocery store on Jackson Street and borrowed the store manager's bowtie.

Back home, time is running out. All of our relatives and friends were waiting at the church. I got into my gown. Mom was driven to the church by family members. Dad wanted to drive me by himself. I thought he was going to say something to me, but he just wanted to drive me to the church. Maybe to be sure that I actually was going to go through with this. He kept joking that "that boy" might not show up. As he was walking me down the aisle he did tell me something. He said "Everything's going to be fine."

Everything was fine, too. "That boy" showed up and we've been fine for 40 years. Well, 44 really.