Happi Anni – Hive and Nest

Time to dredge up the old wedding photo again. It’s my anniversary. Number 17 this year.  

Let me just state a few things about this picture:

1. I was 21. I may have looked 16, but I really was a grown up (legally. Emotionally I certainly was not. But nothing gives you a big, fat dose of grown-up reality in all of its many sucky forms like being married. I’m not complaining about being married. There are lots of great things about being married–that wedding night for example. Hoo boy!– but it makes you mature quickly.)

2. I really, really wanted a dress that wasn’t dripping with lace, beads and other such nonsense. All you brides under 35 don’t realize what a fool’s errand that was. It was 1992 after all! The more crap you could get on a dress, the better. Plain, unadorned dresses simply didn’t exist unless you wanted to dish out $5000 for a Vera Wang. Fortunately I have a mother who is a brilliant seamstress, so I got exactly what I wanted in Shantung silk. I did spring for some teardrop pearls around the waistline, but they were tasteful.

3. I also didn’t want a veil. I don’t remember why, only that most veils at the time were huge white concoctions with sequins and feathery things hanging off of them. And there was often some sort of “across the forehead” beaded thing going on too. I opted for a crown of ivy and roses. It didn’t turn out how I was hoping (nothing like having a florist a thousand miles away) but it was fine.

4. The wedding was lovely, the reception was gorgeous, and it was a nearly perfect day (except that my parents had gotten divorced two weeks before. Can you say “awkward receiving line”? And my two flower girls showed up in completely different–and ugly–dresses than I’d picked out. And it was Oregon so it rained for a while.)

Happy Anniversary Mister! I love you tons! It’s been quite a ride!

(I can be rather bratty and demanding and he’s been a champ.)

P.S. We’re planning on having a fun evening, but he is driving four hours (each way!) to Scout camp today to pick up the boys in our troop. Nothing says “celebrate” like a car full of spazzy twelve-year-olds who smell like smoke and mosquito repellant.