. . . are for celebrations!

Today, August 22, is our 41st wedding anniversary.

My, how those years (good ones, all) have flown by! As Tom and I were driving up north yesterday, we did some reminiscing . . . laughing and sharing stories about our day.

I thought it might be fun to share some of our stories with you; kind of give you the “backstage tour” of our day.

  • It was 1981. We were only 22 when we got married. (So. Young.) Tom was in grad school at Colorado State, and I was working as the newspaper “dummier” (a real job) at The Coloradoan newspaper.
  • We got married in Cheyenne (where our families lived and where we’d grown up, for the later years at least), about an hour north of where we lived in Fort Collins. Tom and I had both gone to the same church as kids, so that’s where we had the ceremony. And we had a very simple reception at my parents’ house afterward.
  • Back in 1981, most weddings were low key events, at least by today’s standards. Nothing like the productions or destination weddings you see these days. In fact, we threw our wedding together in 4 months, and for a lot less than $1,000. I didn’t get my hair styled for the occasion. I didn’t get my makeup “done.” No pre-wedding spa treatment or mani/pedi for me and my “posse.” I just rolled out of bed, did my usual “primping,” and put on a wedding dress instead of my jeans! (And no one in my circle thought this was weird or unusual.)
  • Tom spent the day before our wedding in the emergency room, having some bachelor party injuries seen to. (Can you feel my eyes rolling as I type.) Something about a trampoline and being out in the prairie without shoes and barbed wire. . .
  •  We had two last minute “ringers” in our bridal party. Not long before the wedding, Tom lost two of his groomsmen (and it wasn’t the bachelor’s party). His brother couldn’t get leave from the Coast Guard, and his college roommate had travel woes of his own. Luckily, his two best friends from high school were still there by his side, and we’ll be forever grateful for the other two who stepped in at the last minute. (And at least we knew them! **)
  • I made all the dresses for my bridesmaids and the flower girl. (Sateen. What was I thinking?) My sister was my maid of honor. My best friend, and two sorority sisters rounded out my half of the bridal party. (The flower girl was a family friend of Tom’s parents.)
  • I used to date the best man. (No drama there. It was no big deal, and. . . it’s how Tom and I met.)
  • Tom let me make all the decisions for the wedding. He did, though, ask for one thing: He thought it would be fun to have Spiderman crawling up the side of the wedding cake. I ordered this instead . . .

  • Yep. We had a spiderman groom’s cake. (My grandmother was mortified.)
  • She was also mortified that we had a keg in the garage . . . and no coffee. (She did enjoy the champagne fountain, though.)

  • The reception was very “homey” — easy, low-key, and fun. It was like we were giving a little party on a Saturday night. This picture with my parents just cracks me up. Here I am, posing at my reception in front of the “shrine-wall” in their family room. (If you look closely, you can just make out my high school and college diplomas, and various awards I earned over the years from band festivals, 4-H, and swim team.)
  • We went to Southern California for our honeymoon — LA and San Diego. We visited Disneyland – a place we’d both wanted to go since we were kids. Turned out . . . Disney was not for us. We lasted about 3 hours and had to leave. It was crowded and kids were whining everywhere and it just wasn’t our gig. (We swore to each other that we’d never take any children we may have in the future to Disney.) (And we didn’t.) We enjoyed our days at the beach much more.

It’s fun to remember that time . . . 41 years ago.

Thanks for coming along and walking down memory lane with me today.

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** I was a ringer in a wedding once. When we lived in Austin and I was back at school at UT, I had a government class with a girl named Linda. We were chummy, but just to sit in class with and maybe have a Coke afterward. Anyway, she was getting married in Dallas, and at the last minute (like a day or two before), one of her bridesmaids had to back out, and she had no one who could get to Dallas and step in. As a last resort, she asked me. So Tom and I had an all-expense trip to Dallas for a very swanky wedding and a stay at a nice hotel — and I got a free dress that was actually something I wore for years at other weddings. It was pretty funny, though. We were included at all the wedding events — the rehearsal dinner and related parties (Tom even was invited to the bachelor party). We knew no one (well, except Linda; kinda). People kept asking us . . . and who are you again? I’m sure Linda looks back at her wedding photos now and just sighs . . . trying to remember the name of that girl from her government class.