We recently celebrated 20 years of blessed marriage. Wow! Where have the years gone?
We got married in Freeport IL, at a beautiful county park just outside of Freeport. We both still remember the day as if it was yesterday. What was to be a small wedding turned out to be bigger than we both anticipated with over 100 guest.
Being that I was married previously-I could and would not wear white-so I had to find a dress that would fit the color theme that we had chosen; blue & pink.
We both agreed that we did not want to get married in any particular church so we chose this park just outside of town that had a tabernacle and a reception hall. When you rented the reception hall, the rest went with it-which made it perfect for us. If weather was perfect-then we would be married outside, if not, then the tabernacle would provide us the shelter we would need. It had no heat, but kept us out of the element.
We had to be at the park office on a particular day to sign up on a first come-first serve basis for Oakdale Nature Preserve for the day we wanted-April 25th. We got our date, however the following week we get a phone call from the superintendent of parks wanting us to change our day because of Earth Day and they had planned on celebrating it at Oakdale. We stayed firmed and said it was their error and they had our money-we won.
I made all the flower decorations for the wedding, and the lady that use to babysit Brian many years ago, made our cake. We did our own food preparation with help from Brian’s family. Brian’s brother Steve and his wife Diane came down the night before to help with decorating and Brian’s sister, Wanda video our wedding. Our neighbor who was into photography shot all the pictures for us as a wedding present. We did our own music on cassette. My three girls, Becky, Melissa & Jessica would be my maid of honor, and bridesmaid. And Brian’s best friend, Rick was his best man.
The most special part of our wedding was that Brian had become good friends with the previous minister to the church that he worked at and when he retired and moved to Southern IL, Brian called him said he was getting married. Ernie (the minister) was honored to travel all that way to marry a good friend. It would be his last performance as a minster for a wedding. Ernie died later that summer….
In the weeks to come was busy preparing things and finalizing all for the wedding. Where we had bought our rings, was from a jeweler that Brian knew and was friends with. So he picked up our rings to make sure they were clean and all was perfect for our wedding day. Two days before the wedding he brings them back claiming that there were stones missing out of my ring and it had to be sent away to be fixed. I told him that wasn’t a nice joke to play on a woman days before her wedding and that I would get even one day….
The day before the wedding we had the rehearsal. Brian’s friend, Rick comes in wearing wild colors with a battery operated squawking parakeet on his shoulder. The girls decided they would join in with Rick and act goofy. It was very hard for both the minister and Brian to keep a straight face I panicked and was nervous! We all had a good laugh when Ernie came to the part with the ring exchange and our rings were changed out for a huge washer and a bolt!
We knew a few days before the wedding that a cold front was moving in. Brian was worried that I would freeze in my dress, and I refuse to wear a coat. So I quickly sewed a shawl to help me stay a little warmer.
Wedding Day: Neither of us got much sleep the night before, but we were up bright and early and once again heading back to the park to make sure all was ready. We had all the food there and ready to go with again help from family and friends. It was cold, windy and rain.
Then it was time to get the girls hair done and dressed and hope they didn’t get dirty before the wedding. Then I had to get ready myself. Guest were arriving and the excitement began.
As I wait just outside the tabernacle with my father and my daughter, Becky; my dad turns to me and said: “Girl, God has given you one last chance at happiness and a good man-don’t go messing it up” Then becky turns to me and says: “Yeah, Mom, this is your one and last chance to run”. So I pretended as if I was going to run and both my dad and Becky grabbed me, everyone inside was looking in confusion and then I walked down the isle with a smile on my face!
We really couldn’t have asked for a better day. Sunshine would have been nice, but God gave us what he did and we accepted it. The wedding and reception went with out any problems and the Park services was still able to do their Earth Day, just at another park.
20 years later; girls are grown, Brian’s dad and his sister Wanda are both gone as well as both of my parents. But our memories is still alive within us and we are still going strong for hopefully another 20+ years.
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