From Rings to Weddings

Yesterday I talked about our rings. Today, there was a comment in my blog post for the letter W in the April A to Z Blog Challenge and the wedding photo I included. I told the commenter there was a story behind our dress and I would have to share it in a post. So here goes… 

When we met, we were both widowed from twenty year marriages and those were not our first marriages. We had both done the “official” type wedding and we wanted to keep this one low key. Our plan was to visit our timeshare in Cabo San Lucas and have a small ceremony there. That would alleviate any stress from family members not being able to attend a wedding in the states (our extended family is in CO, NY, DE, MD, FL, GA, OH and probably somewhere else I’ve forgotten).

So we planned our dress code accordingly. Hawaiian shirts, khaki pants – cute, comfy, and casual.

Well, it turned out to WAY out of our price range so we moved to plan B, getting married by a Justice of the Peace in Maryland. As we told a few close friends about it, one of them stopped us. He was getting married in Virginia and had already rented the Legion Hall for the ceremony and reception. Plus, all our mutual friends would be going. (The man in the black suit beside us is the friend who was getting married – they went formal, we went tropical).

Plan C – and we got to invite all the family that lived close enough to make it. It was a wonderful day. Well, except for hubby getting a black eye the day before when he was helping wrench a friend’s RV and my having bronchitis that necessitated a visit to an urgent care clinic so I wouldn’t be sick on our honeymoon in Cabo.

Oh, and it started a now family tradition – a marshmallow fight at all family weddings. Done after all the official stuff, the grandkids pass out ziplock bags of marshmallows, someone in the family tosses one, and it’s off! Nothing gets hurt or damaged, when it’s winding down, all the kids pick up the remnants. It’s been done at our wedding, two daughter’s wedding, hubby’s brother’s wedding, and our granddaughter’s wedding.