Saturday, March 29, 2008

Five Years



Today is our fifth anniversary...it's so hard to believe it's been five years! On one hand, it seems so much longer, but at the same time it's like it was just yesterday. The day was sunny and cool and highly anticipated. It was a wonderful day, and I'd do it again!
Looking back through some old emails, I found the following recap about our wedding:
The wedding was beautiful and went off pretty much without any problems. Well, except that we lost the vows. Tony and I thought someone was taking care of them for us; we're still not sure what happened, but while our parents were being seated, it was discovered that "oops, we don't know where the vows are!" All the groomsmen set about searching the church while our guests were patiently seated listening to "Largo" play about five too many times (although Jane Wolff did a beautiful job on the organ!) before our wedding coordinator finally found the vows. After that, the six "flower kids" started in and did a great job! Well, sort of. We forgot to tell my niece Hannah to drop flower petals, and as the "older" girls went in, Anna and Olivia started dropping petals...and Hannah started picking them up. We got her straightened out, and off she went down the aisle dropping her petals....until she had enough and decided to empty the basket by turning it upside down then exiting out the back. Turns out she was just extremely tired. As soon as she reached her daddy, she was sound asleep. By the time I reached the front, my legs were aching. For any single gals reading this...take my advice. Do NOT wear 4-inch heels during your wedding! I don't remember much about the wedding except for thinking "please hurry up...I'm hot and sweaty, my legs are killing me, and I'm really scared my legs are going to give out and I'm going to topple over!" I think Pastor Luke thought I was nervous because he cracked a few jokes and made some comments about "making sure this won't be too long" to which I added a fervent "Amen!"

Our reception was fun, starting with a wonderful slide show of old pictures and funny captions that my Uncle Ralph put together. His daughter Liz, my matron-of-honor, was seated next to me and often commented "that's not the caption I suggested!" Thank you, Uncle Ralph...it made me really nervous wondering just WHAT her suggested captions were after seeing some of yours! We cut the cake without incident, had some great speeches, everything was emceed by Tony's brother Mark, who did a wonderful job. Towards the end, though, the reception was crashed by a gorilla in a plaid suit jacket who ran round dancing to "I Did It My Way." The gorilla then disappeared (or so we thought) and we gathered up the single ladies (well, most of them...LaMae, Marjean, and a few of the wiser ladies wouldn't join the younger singles) -- Tony's niece Tessa proudly caught the...rubber chicken! When I finally threw the bouquet, another niece, Carrie, was the recipient. Since she's only 14 (I think?), I'm sure her parents are hoping and praying that "tradition" of being the next to marry does not occur! Tony's brother, Jon, who caught the garter, did comment that it doesn't work, since he's caught the garter in the past.

We were then ready to make our exit, only to find the caddy missing....a few minutes later it was driven up...by the gorilla! He opened the door for me and balloons started falling out of the car. I'm still not sure how Dwight, Jon, and Dorothy Crook managed to get so many balloons (with drawn on pigs, cows, rabbits, etc.) into the car. After getting me and my huge dress in the car, the gorilla closed the door...then started heading for the driver's side before Tony could get there...thankfully, Tony made off with me before the gorilla did. (By the way, did anyone notice that Tony's friend Mark Magnuson, one of our ushers, was mysteriously missing during most of the reception until well after we left? Hm....wonder where he "disappeared" to!) We also noticed later that there was a family of small pigs fastened to the roof of the car. Thank you, David, for not putting the real thing on top, as Tony did for you at your wedding!
Back to 2008 -- Tony's brother Jon was wrong -- he WAS the next to get married! But thankfully Carrie was NOT the next single gal to get married. I pray she'll find someone as wonderful as her Uncle Tony :) Over the next few days, I'm going to post some old writings of mine about my move to Minnesota and our return from our honeymoon...and the misadventures of both! It's been fun going through and rereading them.
Honey, I love you! And I'm praying for many more decades of wedded bliss!

5 comments:

Jane said...

I kept thinking "should I change piece"?(after playing Largo 3 times. I didn't know 'till later what happened. But Mark Magneson kept telling me "keep going". so I did. Later someone told me that she almost had the piece memorized to which I replied "so did I" Memories!!!!

LindaSue said...

oh, my goodness! Thankfully, they didn't tell me what was happening until much later! We'd been assured by someone that he would keep our vows somewhere safe...then didn't remember he insisted on keeping the paper they were on! Thankfully, my brother had an extra copy in his Bible. It's funny watching the wedding video, seeing all these groomsmen running around through the sanctuary window!

liz said...

Your wedding was so fun, so beautiful, so blessed! Thanks for the memories--and looking forward to more!

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful wedding. What an interesting trip to MN and back to OH. What cute little grandkids (of course) and the older ones you "married". Wonderful family. My memories also include making Hungarian Goulash for the rehersal dinner and all the home made noodles. I'm thankful I had only one daughter to do that for. (Yes, I'd do it again if I had to!) And we'll never forget LaMae! She made us feel so special.
We're thankful Tony is our son-in-law and that he takes such good care of YOU and our precious grandchildren who live so far from us. May God's richest blessings be with you for many more years.
Love you all much.

Martha said...

Happy Anniversary, Lin! Yours is an easy one for me to remember! :) Thanks for sharing your memories with us here since I wasn't able to be at your wedding. Much love!!