The Official Wedding - Part I

I think I have mentioned before that Mike & I were actually married to each other twice.  We had a civil ceremony by a Justice of the Peace, and then a bigger church wedding a few months later. Today is the 28th Anniversary of that church wedding, which to the guests attending was our one and only ceremony, and to the two of us, the priest, and our witnesses, was a renewal of our vows taken earlier on March 1st. Why the priest chose to help us with that charade, I don't know. But he was a good man, and indulged us in our secret.

A lot of good that did!  Saying your vows before God twice still meant absolutely nothing to Mike. No more than if he was pinky-swearing with a friend in kindergarten. Mike was always so regulation oriented, it’s odd to me that he never thought of our marriage as a commitment with rules and responsibilities just like the army. Maybe if I had worn khaki to the ceremonies, and had his Warrant Officer preside instead of a Justice of the Peace and an Anglican priest. We did have the reception in the Junior Ranks, I believe it was called "The Snake Room". Yes, it was just as classy as it sounds, but it was free :).

So as I write this, it is the evening of June 20th, 2014, and I am sitting alone in a hotel room in Waterton National Park, Alberta. We came here twice before as a couple. Both times organized by me to get away and either celebrate our anniversary, or just to spend time alone together.  I have accidentally booked a room in the same hotel as when we were here last. I was trying to do exactly not that, but realized as soon as I pulled up that it was indeed where we stayed last.  At least it's not the same room!

Incidentally, our first trip to Waterton was to celebrate our 21st Anniversary. We stayed at an absolutely charming hotel called the Kilmorey Lodge. It burned down 2 years later and has never been rebuilt.  Omen?

I have slowly been revisiting our old haunts.  Partly to reminisce, and partly to reclaim them for my own. So for this anniversary weekend, I took myself to the mountains, to reflect and relax, and to read the latest and long awaited volume in the series of Outlander novels by Diana Gabaldon.  I'm also going to enjoy a massage, and in general just do whatever moves me.

I have also brought with me the mother's diaries that both of my girls have given me on separate occasions, to fill out with my history and story of my life and who I am. They are so sweet to care! Imagine, my kids wanting to know who I am and everything about me! I must have done something right along the way. Now, they are both well aware of my tendency to procrastinate, and have been very patient. Erin gave me her book back in Christmas of 2007 (oh my word time flies, sorry Erin!), and Megan gave me hers a few months ago, so I technically still have another 7 years for hers ;).

I have been periodically working on the one from Erin, and actually intended to finish it and give it back to her this last Christmas.  Well, and then all hell broke loose, and finishing it was just too painful. So, this weekend, I want to at least work on both of them, if not finish them. They'll be so surprised! So will I!

But anyway, back to the wedding.

Mike's parents weren't keen on us getting married at all; thought we were too young (they may have been on to something), and they definitely weren't crazy about the idea of a reception. They wanted a quiet wedding and then dinner out somewhere with just the family.  We were already secretly married, so we could easily have confessed and taken everyone to dinner to celebrate (Would they be in celebratory moods? Not likely.) But well, it's every little girls' dream to wear a beautiful wedding gown and walk down the aisle, and I was (am) the only girl in my family, and I didn't want to deprive my parents of their only daughter's wedding, white dress, church & all. So church wedding and reception it was. Mike's parents were relieved to know that I would agree to be married in the Anglican Church, and not force everyone into a Mormon church, where they may have all spontaneously combusted and/or died from alcohol withdrawal.

Let the circus begin! Mike's Dad (Roy) strongly hinted that my soon-to-be mother-in-law, (Kathy), was very good at organizing things, and was an excellent seamstress. He was absolutely correct about both of those things. She also didn't like me very much. So, the young bride-to-be, anxious to please everyone, especially if they had the suffix of 'in-law' behind their family title, dutifully asked her to please make my wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses, and to help me organize the wedding. This was one of many times in my life I would come to regret not knowing my own power. Or maybe I knew my power but gave it away on purpose in the name of diplomacy? How self-sacrificing of me.

Segue - Why did I lose/give away/forget my power? I had, from a young age, always accepted that I was stronger than those around me thought I was. Fought through my entire childhood, and left home at 17.  I was strong and brave all my life. What the hell happened when I got engaged? Hmm, I will have to explore that more. That will be another post.

Roy and Kathy kindly offered to also pay for the invitations. Kathy took me to the printer she had selected, and gave me a choice of several she had pre-chosen according to their budget. I chose the one that most closely went with the wedding colours we had chosen, which were aquamarine and pink. Glaulgh (that's a gagging noise) why such horrible colours? My only explanation is that it was the 80's. That explanation covers a lot, actually. So the invitation was kind of a teal-ish blue with a rose on it, which was close enough. I already just wanted this wedding over with.

As it would turn out, the text in the invitation had a spelling error, and the entire order had to be reprinted, at the cost of the printer. My father-in-law insisted. The grievous spelling mistake? Beleive instead of Believe.

Well, ha ha, I thought I could get the whole history of my wedding into one blog post. Oh my, how quickly I have forgotten that long, fascinating (for how many things can actually go wrong in one wedding), and educational process!  Let's just say that I should qualify for a career in high-stakes mediation at the U.N.

This is going to take much more than one post. So, as it is now after 1:00 A.M., and I am anxious to start my new book and get a good nights sleep before my massage tomorrow, I will leave it here for now. Will the flower girl get lost in the hotel? Will the wedding cars be hijacked by the groomsmen?  Will the in-laws be left behind at the photography site? Who knows what could be revealed next?!

Stay tuned for more of the exciting adventures of Tammy strives to plan her wedding with/in-spite-of her in-laws, fiancé, mother and grandmother.  Same bat time, same bat place. I'll even add photos!

Happy 28th Double-Fake Anniversary to Me!

And fuck my husband and the mistress he rode in on.