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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

When I Planned My Wedding...

Nearly two decades ago, when my husband first proposed, I had no idea how insane it was going to be to plan my wedding. For one--and the biggest reason it was insane--my husband-to-be was in the Navy (like Ben in the online read I wrote for eHarlequin) and he shipped out shortly after proposing. That meant the bulk of the planning was on my shoulders, with him pretty much unavailable for questions (in those days there was no e-mail, only good old snail mail). We tried to think of as many things as we could before he left, but there were about ten thousand things we didn't :-).

Still, we did pretty well. It wasn't until the very last days that things got kind of hairy. We were getting married on the naval base, and the day before the wedding, the captain of the base called and said he wanted the driver's license numbers and license plate numbers of every single guest coming to our wedding.

Uh...what?

It would have been nice for him to tell me that back when we booked the base chapel, so that I could have asked for that info when I sent out invitations. Or even as I started receiving response cards. But the day BEFORE? We had lots of out of town guests who were already on the road (in the pre-cell-phone days) and no way of getting this info. Eventually, my dad, who was in the army, talked to the captain of the base, and we managed to get around the license plate/license thing.

Most everything went off without a hitch. The details that had seemed SO important for months and months of planning suddenly became moot points once I had that man I loved on my arm :-) and we were dancing to the band. Now, 18 years later, I can tell you the color of my bridesmaid's dresses but doubt I could name all the flowers in my bouquet or all the songs they played at the wedding. I just know we had a wonderful time and danced every second we could.

And I remember one thing...probably my favorite memory of the day. My husband, who isn't much of a singer, sang along to one of the slow songs, just murmuring the words in my ear (it was just so sweet), and then at the very last moment, dipped me, and kissed me. That moment was captured on video and on film. If I remember nothing else about my wedding, that's the minute I want to hold onto--him holding me tight and singing love songs just to me.

Now that's romance :-)

Shirley

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a lovely wedding story :-)

That is definitely romance!!

July 23, 2008 at 7:22 AM  
Blogger Shirley said...

Thanks, Jolynn!

Shirley

July 23, 2008 at 7:55 AM  
Blogger robynl said...

Yikes, not having quick contact to discuss plans must have been a problem. It sounds like everything went off perfectly though and you had a great wedding.

July 23, 2008 at 12:34 PM  
Blogger Brandy said...

Sounds as though many things could have gone wrong, you were blessed they didn't. What a lovely memory.

July 23, 2008 at 2:35 PM  
Blogger catslady said...

It sounds like everything worked out thank heavens. My daughter gets married on saturday and it's an outside gazebo and the weather is not cooperating - it's gone from 10% to 40% chance of rain which means they stick us inside. Got my fingers crossed.

July 23, 2008 at 5:58 PM  
Blogger Shirley said...

Thanks, all!

And Catslady, they say a little rain is good luck (it poured on my wedding day, but just when we were inside; the rest of the time was sunny, which was neat). I hope you have a great day and it only rains when everyone is inside :-)

Shirley

July 23, 2008 at 6:37 PM  
Blogger CrystalGB said...

What a wonderful wedding story. :)

July 24, 2008 at 6:49 AM  

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