An anniversary... sort of

I would have a picture of our wedding here but I don't have a scanner...

Today is my 9th Weddingversary. In a long convoluted story involving trying to please too many people, my husband and I went down to the JOP and did the deed in June, 9 years ago. THEN, we still had a big wedding with all the trimmings in October. And it was lovely. It was a lot of work but fun.

Not too many people came. We've never been very popular. We're not people-pleasers. Jamie thought his Church would show up in droves because of his family but it didn't happen. In fact when we told people we'd already gotten married, they asked if we were pregnant. AT CHURCH! That may have started our bad attitude about Churches in general. Still we had around 75 people there. Lots of family. People that actually loved us. Someone donated all the food and we never even got to taste it. Would have been nice to have some of it in the freezer when we got back from Jamaica. And we had the reception at the Church so no dancing and no champagne. If I had it to do over, I would have had a big reception somewhere else and skipped the wedding part. And had a bar and dancing.

But it WAS a wonderful day. Mostly because we'd already been married for 5 months and because every time we saw each other that day, we'd count down the hours until we left for Jamaica. We should have skipped the wedding and went to Jamaica 1st class!

In the beginning we used to make a big deal about this day. But now, it's really just another day. When we celebrate our anniversary, we celebrate in June. We celebrate our own private ceremony. No flowers, no fancy music. Just us, the Justice of the Peace and the witness (his wife I think). It cost $50 and we forgot to tip the guy. I've ALWAYS felt bad about that! But that quiet ceremony has been the trend in our lives. We're at our best when we do things our own way. We do best when we quit listening to what everyone else thinks we should do.

Our marriage started out very nondescript. I didn't even wear a dress. Shorts and sandals. But you know what? Our marriage has been wonderful. We KNEW about each other. We still know. We're still best friends and lovers. We laugh together and cry together. We're partners. No one has the upper hand. We don't fight. People say oh, you have to fight, but we don't. We get mad, we get frustrated, we stomp around and say things under our breath but it never lasts long and I've never been successful with the silent treatment. We just GET each other.

I liked getting to wear the pretty dress but you can see in the tape I fidgeted the whole time. I'm not comfortable being in front of people. I just wanted it over with. But, hey, at least I got Jamie to say vows to me twice! Maybe we should renew our vows at our 10th anniversary. At Disney. And I could ride in Cinderella's carriage. And it could just be the three of us. And Mickey and Minnie. We could dress up and take pictures! And eat cake in our hotel room! And....hmmm, too much fun. Somebody has to pay for this little adventure. Darn. Being grown up stinks.

But, being married is wonderful. Being married to the one person on earth that "gets" every little thing about you, is a fantasy. A fantasy that is my reality.

My reality rocks.