Topic: A Wedding

Topic: A Wedding

It wasn’t the first time for either of us.  It wasn’t even the second time for me, but we both were determined it would be our last one.  We had dated several months when he proposed to me on New Year’s Eve.  I guess technically he proposed on New Year’s Day 2017.  He had made reservations at a nice hotel and we had gotten all gussied up, had a fancy dinner, and listened to some live jazz in the hotel’s penthouse bar overlooking the city.   He later told me he was going to try to propose in some grand public gesture, perhaps involving the band leader, but it never felt right.  Jan is a physician, one of the smartest men I’ve even known.  He is soft spoken, but he has made me laugh out loud at least once a day for as long as I’ve known him.  This kind, nerdy quirky man had quickly become my favorite person on the planet.  (Still is.) 

About 1am we made our way to our hotel room.  I flopped onto the bed and tossed off my shoes and almost removed my wig.  I have alopecia, so I wear wigs in public most of the time.  I was glad I had kept my hair on my head once I realized what was happening.  Jan, my boyfriend, was on his knees beside the bed digging through his suitcase.  He walked over to me on his knees and presented me with a white gold Claddagh ring with an emerald and tiny diamonds. 

He tentatively asked, “So, you wanna marry this crazy doctor?”  

I was 52 and he was 59 on St. Patrick’s Day 2017, our wedding day.  It was one of the top ten days of my life, right up there with the births of my children.   What I remember most of about it was my level of happiness and peace and the unblinking, unfaltering feeling of hope.  Some day when I’m a very old woman living in a nursing home, I will remember the day and it will comfort me. 

It wasn’t like we spent a lot of money on the day.  The biggest expenditure was a new wig for me- a long wavy reddish brown human hair piece.  I got my dress on eBay for under $100.  It was knee length and lacy with ¾ length sleeves to cover my tattoos.  It came with a stiff slip under the skirt that made it flare out.  This would have been perfect if I were going to be having a first dance and I’d need it to flare out as I twirled in front of our guests.  But there were no guests.   We decided that this time around we would strip things down to the essentials.  Me. Him. A minister.  Okay, and a sound tech/photographer/videographer person. 

We went to this little chapel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  The night before we checked into a cute little cabin in the Smoky Mountains with a hot tub, a big screen tv, and a porch swing.  Jan wore a three- piece suit with a tie with green stripes and a jaunty matching pocket square. I wore green jewelry.  These nods to the holiday were the closest we came to a theme/color scheme.    

We drove together to the chapel at 3:30. My dress was in a garment bag and they had a little dressing room for the brides.  I remember the minister was in his seventies with a soft southern drawl.  He kind of resembled a shorter meatier version of Colonel Sanders.  I don’t remember the vows or too much of the words he said to us. 

We went to great efforts to have the right music for our tiny ceremony.  Jan made a recording of himself playing a piano piece by modern Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi.  It was called “Il Due” or “Two Rivers.”  He did a flawless job and the piece was over four minutes long, but I wanted to walk down that 20-foot aisle to some beautiful music even if he was the only one who really cared to see it.  I walked to the meet Jan and the minister by the time the first few measure of the piece were played.  So, we just joined hands and looked at each other.  And then we both started to cry-happy tears. 

We had to pay extra because the next song that was played lengthened our ceremony to over 15 minutes.  I had gone to a recording studio and sang a cover of “Love Song” by The Cure with an accompaniment track.  These recordings were our wedding gifts to each other and neither could hear the other’s recording until the big day.  We cried some more. 

The sound tech lady took a few professional pictures of us afterwards, but my favorite wedding picture was the selfie we took in the car before we drove to downtown Gatlinburg for our “reception.”  We had dinner at The Melting Pot, a chain restaurant that serves a five-course meal consisting of various fondues.  We parked in the community lot and walked through all the tourists, the line for the sky lift, the shops that sold fudge and air-brushed t-shirts, in all our wedding finery.  People clapped for us and gave us high fives as we walked past. 

We kept saying things to each other afterward like, “Wow, we did it.  We really did it.  We’re married.  This is so cool,” and “I love you so much.”  And now a year and a half later we’re still saying them. We were supposed to receive a video of the ceremony, but something went wrong, and we didn’t get it.  It’s okay.  I much prefer the video of my favorite day ever that I play and replay in my min