24....but 25 is What I'm Looking Forward To....

Twenty-four years ago we took the vows. Amazingly enough we are still married, still like each other, and absolutely still to this day do not have many things in common. Strange huh?


The spousal unit is a football fanatic. If we lived in Oakland, CA he would be a facepainter and at every Raiders home game. The fact that we can't afford to live in No Cal is probably what has helped this marriage survive 24 years because I'm a bit insane but I'm pretty sure I do not have the strength to live with a face painter, it's difficult enough to survive those 16 weeks of football season--because the Raiders are bad asses and all but they, well, they break his heart every single year. But the man is not a quitter. He's also a Cubs fan. Yeah, his extracurricular sports life is kind of sad, but again he's not a quitter. I know that it's his strength of character and loyalty that has gotten us through all these years, because look, I'm a Cub's fan too, our oldest son is named after Ryne Sandberg, but every year, baseball season starts, he's full of so much hope, I'm all, the Cubs, they just break your heart, but he has hope. And that is why we are still married. He is definitely a lemonade kind of guy and I'm so 100% the lemon girl.

He has stood by me in some of the darkest days of my life. He's never expected me to be anyone but exactly who I am and he's done everything in his power to help me make dreams come true. He's never once laughed at me when I've said I want to do this or that. He knew I always wanted to live near the beach so he applied for a job down here and now here we are. Everyday I count my blessings that he and I got married. I am so not worthy and yes, I know exactly how lucky I am.

Now our wedding was a nightmare for me. My mother fought me on every single thing I wanted and she won because I just didn't have it in me to fight with her. I wanted to get married at the Church on the River at sunset. No. Had to get married in our church. So ok I wanted to get married on Friday night, no--people work, people are coming from out of town it's inconsiderate to the people invited, well here's a secret, I didn't know half the people she invited to the wedding and didn't want them to come. Hateful, yep, but I didn't want 200 people at my wedding. Seriously, I wanted small, people I knew and that cared about me, not people invited because they were someone's cousin 20 times removed and blah, blah, blah, but I gave in on that. So then I said I want to have it Saturday morning and then have brunch, nope once again, and I believe her exact words were, "What kind of stupid idea is that." So we ended up getting married Saturday night and I was mad about it the whole time.

Another battle was my wedding dress. My mom had said they would buy my wedding dress, but she had kind of a limited price range(like in 1940s dollars). I was looking at tea length Gunne Sax dresses but I ran across the dress I eventually got on the clearance rack at JC Penney's. It was $400. My mom said no. My mamaw said, "This is the dress, if you don't buy it I will." I got the dress. Have I mentioned how much I love my mamaw?

Another major battle was the preacher. I wanted a certain preacher who had been over our church when I was younger. Momma put a stop those ideas because it would be insulting to the current reverend. That's all I'll say about that. I want to say more, I truly do, but I won't.

So--my wedding was not how I wanted it, I basically turned over creative control, and just showed up and I was not happy. I just wanted to get it over with and get to Pensacola Beach.







This is one of my favorite pictures because the wedding from hell was almost over. And it has chocolate cake! Did I mention that the caterers ran out of punch? We got married Southern Baptist style which means punch and cake in the Fellowship Hall. Yeah, boring. When I think back on September 14, 1985, all I remember is how tired I was and so ready for it to be done. I was so crazy by the time the actual wedding rolled around I just wanted to get it over with. How much does that suck?

But for all the things that didn't go my way that day 24 years ago, I do know that I married the exact right person, you know peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly? Yeah, we fit, we make it work, and he's still the first person I want to talk to when something happens.


Now I've mentioned my mamaw time and again on this blog and never posted a picture. This is my mamaw with me before I got married. It's also fitting that I post a picture because tomorrow would have been her 23rd wedding anniversary to her second husband. She asked me to be her maid of honor at her wedding. It's possible it would have been their 25th wedding anniversary but I think I got married first. The memories are kind of fuzzy at the moment.


Now why, you ask, am I looking forward to 25? We are seriously discussing our 25th wedding anniversary and renewing our vows at the Graceland Wedding Chapel(I'm thinking it might be a different chapel but I'm blanking at the moment) officiated by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas Baby! While getting married is a serious step, the wedding itself should be fun. The vow renewal in Vegas officiated by Elvis should appropriately offend my mother and be good payback for all the misery of 1985. We did discuss renewing our vows on the beach down here at a sunset ceremony but honestly, after living here all these years, a beach wedding has really lost it's mystique. I like the Elvis idea so much better.

I love you babe!

PS-I wanted to add that I didn't really intend for this to be a "bash my mother" post. I really was trying to say that even though my wedding was not, for me, the magical special experience every girl dreams of, as long as you marry the right person, all that other crap doesn't matter. At the time you think it does but when it comes down to it, all those things that seem so very important right that second, really don't matter a flip once it's all over.