Wedding

As my 16th wedding anniversary is quickly approaching (May 9th), it seemed appropriate to write a little about the drama surrounding our wedding.

This would be my second wedding.  Although my first husband had been out of the picture (and out of the state) since about 6 months after my first wedding, I did not have the money for a divorce.  Having met the man who is now my husband shortly after that point over the computer, he came out for a one-week visit to Utah and, well, never really left.

My mother and brother were to be there, of course, and Chris's mother was coming in from San Francisco, where she lived at the time.  Add to them a couple of friends as witnesses and that made up our wedding party - well, along with our son, who was five months old at the time.  The justice of the peace who was to perform the ceremony usually did them in her courtroom.  But as this was the same officiant as in my first wedding, I did not really want to do that.  So she offerred having the ceremony at her home.  I thought that was nice.

The day before the wedding was to take place, we learned that a couple of my soon-to-be-husband's aunts may be coming into town from Texas.  I called the judge to let her know and she said she could not possibly handle that many people at her house.

So - THE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING - we went shopping for someone new to perform the ceremony.  I think we went alphabetically through the yellow pages and at the Unitarian Church in the area, we finally found a female preacher who agreed to perform the ceremony.  Chris and I hot-footed it down to her church and went through the readings and vows we would like to have used.

All in all, it went rather well, considering the chaos of the preceeding 24 hours.  We had the ceremony in my mother's living room, which was nice especially because there was a painting of my father, who had passed away some years before, on a wall - so it was almost like he was there.  My brother held my son up in front of him so he (at 5 months old, remember) could catch the garter.

Then the entire wedding party went out to supper at a local restaurant, the Della Fontana, which featured 7-course meals and of which I already had fond memories.  According to a newspaper article, it is now a sushi restaurant.  How sad.  The building, and old (I mean, old) church was much better suited to Della Fontana.

Our honeymoon consisted of one night at a local residence inn while my mother-in-law took care of our son. We're still working on the honeymoon part.  But then, we are still working on the marriage, too.  That will never cease to be the case.