On the morning of my wedding, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. Sister and I were sleeping in the queen bed in the Green Room at Mom and Dad’s house, and I lay there for a few minutes, staring up at the ceiling.
“Sister, are you awake?” I whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered back.
“Let’s go on a walk,” I said.
So we got up, pulled on our jeans and t-shirts, and snuck out of the house. The sun was just coming up over the big oak and maple trees, and the dew was fresh on the grass. Birds were beginning to sing and Pops’ cows were munching happily in the pasture. We walked up West Main to Center Point Road and back down the hill to Mom and Dad’s house. We remembered all the times we had played in this woods or that woods, and did I remember Bird Island and the Stone Table? (Of course I did.) We talked about lots of things, not the least of which was the fact that I was going to get married in nine hours.
We were walking back up the driveway about 5:45 a.m. when I decided we ought to wake up the boys for one last hurrah. Krispy Kreme opened at 6:00, after all, and we could be there nearly when the doors were unlocked if we hurried. So we sneaked back into the house and blasted in the blue room where the boys were sleeping and jumped on their beds (quietly, of course), demanding they get up RIGHT NOW and go to Krispy Kreme with us.
Surprisingly, they did.
Five minutes later, we were pied into my Saturn and driving down the route Sister and I had just walked. The boys were still bleary-eyed and trying to wake up, but we girls knew a sugarbuzz from Krispy Kreme would fix them in no time.
We each ordered our favorite doughnuts and sat by the window at our traditional table (everything in my family is traditional) and wore the paper Krispy Kreme hats while we got our fingers sticky eating delicious doughnuts.
I ate two.
By 6:30, we were on our way back home. I was just in time to help Dad with his cow chores, so I suited up in the coveralls and mudboots Sister and I share and plodded out into the pasture with Dad. We passed the Grandparents Laird in their huge RV, parked out by the barn, sitting by the windows and having a cup of coffee. Grandma laughed when she saw us and ran for her camera. (I’d post the picture, but I forgot to scan it in last night. Sorry.)
Pops and I checked the water, gave some hay to the girls, and ensured that the sprayer was working. All the usual stuff.
It still hadn’t really registered with me that I was getting MARRIED that day. So far it just felt like a normal day. By 10:00, after I had taken a shower and was on my to the church to finish up some last minute things, I knew it was real. I was so excited. Pictures began at 11:00, and I couldn’t wait to put on my white dress and see Joey in his tux and white bow tie and cumberbund (white that we had each earned over the course of our 22 years!) because then I would know that it was happening.
- I was so thankful that today, my wedding day, I finally felt amazing.
Right after lunch, Joey whisked me away to one of the Sunday School rooms up above the gym (my fourth grade Sunday School classroom, to be exact – best Sunday School teacher I ever had was that year) and we just spent a few minutes by ourselves. It was nice to put the craziness away for a minute, but I was so excited I could barely speak.
With only an hour and a half to go before our wedding, there were pictures to finish and final touches to put on a few things, so before I knew it we were back downstairs in the midst of it all. My bridesmaides, though, had other plans. While Joey’s family was finishing pictures, and when no one was looking, they stuffed me in the car and off we drove to Coffesmiths, my dress billowing up into the dashboard and obstructing the driver’s view of the windshield. We giggled as we stood in line for our caffeine, five girls obviously playing hookey from a wedding. Since it was just an hour until showtime, we took our coffee on the road and were amazingly back at the church before anyone noticed we had been gone.
“Where’d you get that coffee?” someone asked. We all just giggled.
I can’t really remember much of the ceremony. Well, OK, I take that back. I remember one part – Pastor Steve told us that we could talk after we had lit the unity candle and while Sister and The Brother were singing. So I tried to talk to Joey, per instructions from Steve, and JOEY TOLD ME TO “SHH”. Right in the middle of our wedding, y’all.
I still harass him about it. Apparently he missed that little part during our rehearsal.
Last year for our anniverary, Joey was sweet enough to take the DVD of our wedding and burn the audio to a CD, so I’ve actually heard my wedding ceremony several times in the last year. I really enjoy listening to it, especially since Pastor Steve’s sermon/challenge part was super good. (Unfortunately we didn’t really “hear” it until three years after he gave it, but it probably makes more sense to us now than it did then anyway.)
We didn’t hang around long at our reception. I had been running on pure adrenaline all day long, and exhaustion due to the whole having Mono thing was beginning to take over. We talked to as many people as we could, but suddenly, I was just done. I couldn’t stand up any longer, and really wasn’t feeling well at all. So Joey got the car, which he had hidden across the street in the bank’s parking lot. (He’s very smart.) My cousins passed out the rose petals to our guests, and we ran, laughing, through a rainshower of soft, brightly colored petals.
That is, until we encountered Joey’s brother’s at the end of the line. They had huge, huge handfulls and threw them right at me. I had rose petals stuck in my dress for quite some time, and we were still finding renegade petals in the Saturn for months after our wedding. His brothers had excellent aim.
And that was my wedding day. It was lovely, beautiful, romantic, fun and all those typical things that can sound kind of trite…but it was really the best day in the world, because I got to marry my best friend. And, while my wedding day was great, it was really just a beginning. Each year is better than the one before it, I believe the best is yet to come.
Here’s hoping we can be married for 75 years, Joey. (We can do it…we just need to take a lot of vitamins so we stay really, really healthy and can get really, really old.)
