It is a miracle that anyone who plans a wedding still manages to have one, and ours was a relatively simple affair. My mother remained unhappy about our impending marriage and regularly reminded us of that fact. We were too young. I wasn't near ready to be a father. I reminded her that my fiancée and I didn't intend to have children anytime soon. I was mature enough to hold down a full-time job and bring home a paycheck sufficient to support us. And, once again, I was also three years older than she'd been when she got married and had me. She'd had a second child by the time she reached my age.
My fiancée and I both insisted that we'd never had sex, which my mother hadn't quite asked either of us directly. What she did ask, us together, then my fiancée privately, was whether she was pregnant. Of course, I'd already answered that question immediately upon announcing our engagement. Still, my mother felt the need to sit us down, look us both in the eye and ask again, then my fiancée once more, as though she might not admit the truth in my presence. She was skeptical when we explained that it wasn't biologically possible. Which then earned us a knowing smile and her insisting, if that was the case, then we were getting married so that we could have sex and it not be a sin. This was true in part for me, but my fiancée was an agnostic and didn't believe in sin, only promises to her grandmother.
My mother was far from finished with her efforts to dissuade us when she astonished us both with just how determined she was to convince us that our getting married would be a mistake. She was most certainly not giving her blessing to the alternative, but, if that's all this foolishness was about, we'd be far better off if we just went ahead and had sex. She stressed that we should use protection. And take it from her own experience and not mess up our entire lives for no better reason than having sex. And, finally, if we insisted on going through with this foolishness, she wanted our wedding in a church - our church, preferably, with our pastor officiating.
My fiancée refused empathically. She was not getting married in a church, but if that were what she wanted, shouldn't the location be the bride's choice, along with who officiated. She didn't feel the need for anyone's blessing but our own and would feel like a hypocrite being married in a church. I had no problem with us being married at the courthouse. If the courthouse was good enough for my mother, why shouldn't it be good enough for us?
My fiancée also refused to be married at the courthouse. She wanted a wedding. She'd found a lovely dress that wasn't outrageously expensive, and she'd always envisioned herself wearing a wedding dress and walking down an aisle, somewhere, just not a church. And she stressed again that she had earned the right to wear a white wedding dress for my mother's benefit. She didn't want a church, but she did insist on the ceremony.
With the church and courthouse both out of consideration, I wasn't sure what alternatives we had left until I remembered that our church owned a campground in partnership with several other local churches, so it was non-denominational. I wasn't thinking about the small chapel they had - it was the meadow, surrounded by trees, with a running stream and a small waterfall at the edge of the woods. My fiancée agreed that was an intriguing possibility, so I took her there to see it.
In addition to the meadow, stream, waterfall, and half a dozen cabins scattered through the woods, the camp had a large recreational building in the center, which was primarily used as the dining hall, with a massive stone fireplace at one end of the building, behind which was a full commercial kitchen. My fiancée loved the meadow, stream, and waterfall but acknowledged that we had no control over the weather. If it rained, she had no problem with us having the wedding and reception there at the recreational building. Only if it rained and she wasn't sure she wouldn't be okay with us getting married in the rain. She joked that we could even honeymoon in one of the cabins - one-stop shopping. Only kidding about the cabins, but otherwise, once she'd decided, there was no dissuading her
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The Words - An Autobiography
Science Fiction"What if God was one of us?" Credit to Eric Bazzilion, and thanks to Joan Osborne for singing his brain-rattling words. Much earlier, my mother promised that if I applied myself, I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up. Then, from somewhere, I r...
