MY NOT SO SPECIAL DAY
Read any romance novel, fairy tale or women’s magazine and the thing that stands out most is that her wedding day is the most exciting and happiest day of any girl’s life.  What a load of twaddle!
Most of the weddings I have been involved with seem to have been stressful, to say the least.  Mine was a nightmare.
My family, like most was rather dysfunctional, my grandma had brought me up until I was twelve then I was returned to my mom, but grandma still very involved. At sixteen I returned to Grandma and mom left England to live with her cousin in the USA.
I met Dave and his loving family when I was seventeen, I fell in love with his parents and they took me under their wing.  Dave’s mom became my own mom and my best friend until her passing at 69 years old.
At nineteen, I became pregnant and I remember so well Dave’s response to this news.  Not for him the down on one knee, trembling proposal, instead his reaction was Oh Sh–, we had better get married.
I had to write to my mother for permission to marry as I was under 21, her reaction was to just send a formal consent addressed to “to whom it may concern”, Dave’s mom just hugged me and took over the planning of the nuptials.
Dave and I had no money to spend on a wedding, we had some small savings but we used this as the deposit to buy an old, run down house.  We wanted to just get the whole thing over with and thought we would have a civic wedding but Dave’s mom was insistent on a church wedding, however, she was also insistent on the English tradition of no white dress for an impure bride.  I was to wear a short blue cocktail dress.
As Dave’s parents owned a retail  business and Saturday was a busy trading day, it was decided we would get married on a Monday, however this meant the church organist was not available to play.  Dave’s grandfather played the organ in his local church so it was decided to ask him to play.  On the day, he was too sick to travel so he recorded the music, to be played on a tape recorder.
Foolishly, we never listened to the music prior to the ceremony so I was rather startled when the first hymn turned out to be “Fight the good fight”, which set the congregation into fits of titters, was this an omen for things to come?  The second hymn was “All things bright and beautiful”, nice but not really a wedding hymn, however for some reason we had an extra verse of music, when we all just stood in silence looking uncomfortable.  The processional was joyful and so was the retiring hymn, so we were relieved to walk down the aisle to wedding music.
As previously stated, my family did not get on and spent most of their time bickering so the prospect of getting them all under one roof was daunting.  The ceremony was not a problem but when we moved into the reception room they immediately started moving the place cards around on the table as they wouldn’t sit with certain other family members.  I was a nervous wreck and just wanted it to be over with.  I just wanted to be married and shut the door of our own home, locking the rest of the world out.
My brother and uncle promised to take the photos but they didn’t, luckily someone had a small “instamatic” camera so we got a few photos taken in the rain of that cold December day.  That didn’t really bother me as I do not really want any momentos of the stressful day.
We have had lots of ups and downs over the years, the first five or six years we were desperately poor as we had four children in quick succession and I stayed home to look after them till they went to school.  However, we always had a roof over our heads and took pride in the fact that we managed to improve our circumstances by lots of sweat equity.  Dave learned how to fix and improve the home and, I painted and wallpapered it to our taste.
In December we celebrate 53 years of being married which is quite an achievement after the awful start of our life together. I still cannot manage to look back on our wedding day with any fond memories, however, it was just one day in our lives that led to a wonderful life together.  My advice to all young couples is to ignore the demands of family and just elope to a place in the sun.  No stress, no feuding relatives, just you two and any guests that you truly love and want to share this happy day with.