Weddings (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Bouquet from my daughter's wedding

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with W for Weddings.

I didn’t go to weddings (or funerals) when I was little. Our family was small, and these occasions didn’t occur often; the few that did, my parents went by themselves and got a babysitter for me. Though I saw plenty of engagements and weddings on TV and read about them in romance novels, I didn’t daydream about my own. That was a good thing because I never had a fancy engagement party or an elaborate wedding and haven’t regretted it. 

My first marriage came about via an argument. I don’t recall the context, but at some point I expressed doubt about our relationship into the future, and to reassure me (I guess), he suggested we should get married. Not exactly an Instagram moment! Since we didn’t have much money, we decided to go to Vegas, impulsively, the next weekend. That was a lot of fun! I highly recommend it as a way to avoid spending a gazillion dollars and having to deal with obnoxious relatives. I don’t remember what kind of ceremony we had, other than the fact that it was cheap and not Elvis themed ~ I would have liked an Elvis impersonator to officiate, but they had to be reserved in advance. The only sad part is that we didn’t have a real wedding cake.

Well, I guess it was also sad that the marriage didn’t work out. About a year later, we separated, and I moved into my own apartment with the kitties. Since we didn’t have any shared assets or children, it was an easy-peasy divorce, final in six months. During that time I met my second ex-husband to be, and while I was not anxious to get married again so soon, he was older and wanted to commit, so we did. This time, the wedding, though small, was more traditional with a lace dress, religious ceremony, relatives, dinner, etc. But even so we did not have a real wedding cake as the hotel chef  "wasn't a baker," and I couldn't deal with having one transported. They did a baked Alaska for us, which honestly is not a great metaphor with which to begin a marriage, though this one lasted 20 years.

Since then, I've been to more weddings, including both my daughters, which were beautiful and perfect in their own ways, though different from each other. I've also been to some weddings of friends and relatives, each one interesting and special. Most of these included an actual cake. My favorite wedding however is probably the one the girls and I created for their Barbie and Ken dolls back in the ‘90s. It was quite involved and elaborate, and as far as I know, that marriage is still going strong.