Anniversary musings lo these many years later

A girlfriend and I went out for drinks last night (it is worth noting that yes, my life has reached a place where it is now possible for me to say that sentence without laughing out loud, nor crying. Woo-hoo!) We got talking about my wedding anniversary, because she was doing her mental relationship math and remembering the weekend of our anniversary, but she had mis-remembered the year.

You see, a year before our wedding is the year all the people died in Chicago. Heat exhaustion. It was awful. On the news for weeks about all the bodies discovered. They brought in cooler semi-trucks to store the bodies so the coroner could catch up. I don't want to make light out of all these horrible deaths, but at the time all that I could think was "Shit! I'm getting married on this exact weekend next year!" Sweat stains were not part of my wedding vision.

Do I even need to tell you how it went down? It's Chicago, after all. A year later, TOTALLY different weather. I think it was 72 and patchy clouds, light breeze on our wedding day. Nice gift, karma. What do I owe you now, our firstborn? I don't recall any specific deals but there were some hazy times...At any rate, I've dug up some wedding pictures for your viewing pleasure, and have a few musings about the whole affair while I'm at it:

• First, we have totally lived to regret the band-collar tux shirt decision. My dad was immensely pleased at not having to wear a bow-tie, but otherwise this is our powder-blue tuxedo. 
• There were two (known) incidents of public urination over the course of the wedding weekend. I shudder to think about how many we don't know about.
  
• My nieces who were adorable in their flower-girl garb and wandering aimlessly down the aisle are now both driving. One heads to college in a year.
• Facebook means I can get back in touch with most of our friends who were in attendance and taunt them with pictures of themselves from 14 years ago. Oh, come on, you know it's one of the best parts of facebook!

Do you want to see pictures? No, really, you want to see them? You're sure? Okay, but only because you asked so nicely. Please ignore the dusty appearance. Note to self: clean off the scanner flatbed when scanning photos for the first time in a year.

 
This is my dad, his brother, and his mom. I have no idea why my uncle changed into jeans and a polo. Maybe he thought the stars and stripes motif would be more festive for the reception? Meanwhile, my grandmother, in typical Gram fashion, spent a good part of that morning at the kitchen table in her slip, sewing in a few more stitches. She did this for every one of our weddings (even though I'm relatively sure she wore the same green dress to each. Three sisters, four weddings, five years.)

   

You know they were saying, "How far do you think I can chuck this?" and "Oh no, dude, I could totally hit the limo driver from here." This is John and his brother, who is not a Hasidic Jew, before the wedding.

   

The cheesiness of this photo is just too hard to bear. But hey, Kristy and Vince's engagement picture made it in (marble table, left side of frame.)

   

This is where we tortured our friend Kim by having her read the selection with the "love is like a gazelle, leaping" bit. We snickered our way through this as she struggled to retain some dignity. Whole batch of awesomeness in this memory.

 
On the left in the gray dress is my awesome cousin's daughter Kaitlin (who, interestingly enough, goes by Kaity now, whereas I'm known in some online circles as KayTi...) Kaitlyn got married last labor day weekend. I brought my kids to her wedding and they danced the night away. Fantastic. On the right is one of the aforementioned flower girls. This is the one that will be going away to college in a year.

 
Me, my gorgeous maid of honor Missi, and the two flower girls who are now old enough to drive, blog, facebook, and have cell phones and unlimited text plans. I have always loved this picture, which was just random but the photographer was good at catching random. This was mere moments after the solo shots of me with each of the little girls where the photog got their attention on me by telling them that I had a bug on my nose. Sarah clocked me so hard I was certain there'd be blood spatters on the white dress. Thankfully no.

 
What, you're still here? Not bored out of your mind? This is the obligatory "whole wedding party" photo so you can enjoy the powder blue tuxedos I mean band-collar shirts. And the two different colored bridesmaids dresses because I was indecisive. And the flowers that I got talked into (out of having each girl carry a different color rose bouquet and me carry some of each) that I really didn't care for in the end. Pretty, but not what I had pictured. Thankfully I've developed big girl panties since then and can't be bullied about flowers anymore. Unless you count the way the Queen Anne's Lace walks all over me and disregards garden borders, but that hardly counts since the Queen Anne's Lace doesn't work in a flower shop.

 
I swear I'm almost done. This is for those of you who have only known me with short (to me) hair. I did used to have hair that went down to my waist, and very few pictures of it. I prefer it short now (I know, I know, shoulder-length hair hardly qualifies as short, but given my context it does for me!) though it was cool being the "girl with the really long hair that goes down to her butt." <- which, literally, was my nickname in college.

 
Aww, it's us leaning on a fence. Dad's compost heap is behind John and to the left. Some years he gets it cooking so hot it peels the paint off the fence.

Happy Anniversary, honey. I'd do it all again, fourteen times over. Love you, mean it.

Comments

[kristin]

Awww shucks, so many gooey things, can't pick just one. Pretty sure Dick's jeans and polo were better than the jeans and tuxedo shirt he pulled on at one wedding (Jenny's?). Thanks for the mini shout out in photo format for us, though I never thought my engagement picture looked dated until *right* *now*. Thanks for that. And for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the airplane from Canada to France crashed right before your wedding too...I remember that somehow being tied to the headline on that day's Tribune. So it wasn't all heat related news. There was other kinds of death and destruction.

In other random thoughts, now this totally makes me want to go digging through my wedding album...the only pics I see regularly are the one in Mom and Dad's album when I make sure that ours is stacked on top of the pile (which clearly, you check too since someone moves them around).

[Karen T. Smith]

Yeah, that airplane business meant we had to wait in two extra lines to check into our cross-the-water flight, which then resulted in a dead run to make it. Ugh! But that was ON our wedding day, rather than a year before (when all the people died) so...there's that. The Olympic bomber (Atlanta) was also 2 weeks before, as I recall. Lovely summer we picked to get hitched!

[Your now able to drive highscool niece Katie]

Aw Aunt Karen I love that picture of us with your friend! That is so adorable! I had never heard the story about the bug (clever, clever photographer). I miss you guys so much. Sarah and I need to drive up and visit you guys sometime. Tell Liam and Anastasia "hi" for me. And tell uncle John "hi" too when you see him next.

[Theresa]

Karen--That was so fun. I love your musings--they were very funny. I forget Sarah and Katie were ever that little--it was so cute! I can't figure out what is going on in that picture of you and John dancing, though--I am holding Katie behind you and it looks a little strange:)