Our Wedding Story

Gramz Quilts — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:43:00 GMT

Tomorrow, my Love and I will celebrate 27 years of marriage. There have been many blissful moments as well as tearful ones, but our love has endured them all. A facebook friend asked me to tell our wedding story. Since I already shared it there, I thought I would share it with my blog friends as well.

During our engagement, my fiance and I lived several hundred miles apart so we were anxious to firm up the arrangements whenever we could be together. Back then we weren't aware of any tools to help plan marriage ceremonies. If computers and the web had been available back then, we would not have experienced the crazy mix-up that was to come.

On one of his trips to my hometown, I think it was in January, we went to the courthouse to get our marriage license. I remember it well because the ladies there were so friendly. When they asked the date of the wedding, I told them April 6. We did all the paperwork and received congratulations from all the nice people in that office. We were reminded to return the paperwork within 30 days. It felt good to be able to do something together in preparation for the big event.

On the day of the wedding, everything went according to plan. We started a few minutes late, the cake wasn't pure white, and I hadn't completed all the flower arrangements, but otherwise everything was perfect. After the reception we headed for our honeymoon in a city about two hours away. When we arrived at the hotel in our wedding attire, we learned that someone had cancelled our reservations. The hotel manager was quick to remedy the situation and gave us a lovely room and left special gifts for us. The first or second night at the hotel we ordered pizza in our room; after the first delivery, a second call came in for a pizza delivery that turned out to be some of our male college friends playing a trick on us. They never made it up to our room, thankfully!

A few days later we were settling nicely into our little church parsonage and I had fun arranging all our lovely gifts. On the Thursday following the wedding, we had our first argument which we quickly patched up. I can't even recall what we argued about, but immediately afterward we received a call from the minister who officiated at our wedding. The pastor and I were friends; we had grown up together in that congregation and I had even done my ministerial internship under his leadership, but it was still odd that he would call.

"So, how's married life?" he asked.

I think I responded with something like, "Just fine." I was curious about his call and thought maybe he was calling just to tease us.

"Well, I'm sorry to say that you're not."

"Not what?"

"Not married."

Now I was really confused. He started to explain. He had turned in the license to the courthouse as expected. The problem was, it hadn't been turned in within the required 30 days.

But it HAD, I thought. It hadn't even been a week yet.

Turns out, that paperwork has to be turned it within 30 days of when you APPLY for marriage license. Since I had told the clerk our wedding date, I naturally assumed she meant 30 days after the wedding.

So, there we were, living in the church parsonage and we weren't legally married! We were in utter shock! At that point I must admit I felt quite insecure. What if my groom decided he didn’t want to be married to me at all? But he assured me that he still wanted to be married.

Since the state we lived in required a three day waiting period and blood work to approve a marriage license, and since the announcement would be in the local paper, we decided we had better head back to Kentucky to get another license and have the same minister do the wedding again.

I called my parents to explain the situation and to ask if we could stay the night with them. We quickly packed and were on the road. When we arrived at my parent's house, they both met us at the door. If you knew my dad well, you would realize he rarely answers the door so it was surprising to see him standing there. They had discussed our situation at length and decided that in the eyes of God we were already married so they were going to allow us to sleep in the same bed together that night. I hadn't even thought of that! Of course, we kept to our own sides of the bed that night because my parents’ bedroom was directly below ours!

The next day was Friday, and we immediately applied for and received our new marriage license. The clerks were sweet and apologetic. I think they said this is the first time this situation had occurred. Then on to the church where we were married again, this time I wore navy rather than white. My maid of honor was still available, but my mother signed in place of the best man.

We were very quiet about it at first, because we did not want to cause a problem for our little church where my husband was the pastor. But our district presbyter thought the story was hilarious and he liked to introduce us by telling people that we lived together before we were married.

Now it is just a funny story. I understand that minister now warns couples not to make the same mistake. The fun advantage is that we have two anniversaries to celebrate so we can pick the date that is most convenient for work and family schedules. But I always have to remind myself to write down the legal date when asked; I still view the first date as the real one.

Gramz's Blog : humor, marriage

Our Wedding Story