The Wedding Week

It was quite a week, that week leading up to our wedding on the 21st day of December in 1974. Bill had insisted on having our wedding right after he graduated from Milford Technical School (now Southeast Community College), so he had just completed finals and his family had driven the nearly 400 miles from Gering to attend his graduation the previous weekend. His dad wasn't too pleased about having to ask for time off work twice in a week's time during the sugar factory campaign, where he worked rotating shifts at the height of the sugar processing season. And the thought of making that long trip four times in 10 days must have been more than a little irritating for the whole family.

Mom and I were both attending Concordia College (now Concordia University) in Seward, so we both had finals that week, and Mom technically graduated, although she didn't have a graduation ceremony just then. Mom had to drive back and forth to Seward for each of her finals, while I was still living in the dorm, and I had to pack all my belongings, taking some to our new apartment in Lincoln, and the rest to my family's house in Fairbury.

Mom was exhausted from balancing her college commute and classes with working at the Stable, the very successful steak house my parents owned, and trying to get ready for Christmas while working on wedding preparations. Years later, Mom confessed that, at the age of forty, she thought she might be pregnant then, so I can only imagine how that, too, impacted her stress level during that eventful week.

Mom had no time to even start sewing my sister, Laura's, candle-lighting dress for the wedding, but my Grandma and Aunt Marilyn saved the day when they arrived for the wedding in the late morning, and isolated themselves in a bedroom to make the dress. They encountered only one problem: Laura had grown since the fabric was purchased, so they decided to add a ruffle to the bottom of the dress to make it long enough.

I was totally exhausted because I was recovering from a bout with Mono that September, while taking classes and planning a wedding. There was no time to rest, though. As soon as I got back to Fairbury, Aunt Viola came to the house to trim my hair and give me a permanent. Unfortunately, that decision meant that my hair was mostly unmanageable for the wedding, since it usually took at least a week for my hair to settle down after a perm.

I remember that Mom asked me to prepare her Christmas cards, which she hadn't gotten around to doing yet, so I dutifully signed each card and addressed each envelope, and stamped them with the sheet of stamps Mom gave me. After they had been mailed, we realized that those "stamps" weren't real stamps at all; they were Christmas seals (stickers). Surprisingly, none of the cards were returned for improper postage, so the post office officials didn't catch the mistake, either. (I don't know if she ever confessed that mishap to her dad, who was a rural letter carrier.)

Bill spent some time that week moving his stuff from his dorm to our newly-rented apartment, then he came to Fairbury and stayed with my family, sleeping on the hide-a-bed couch in the basement. He spent a couple of days putting the final touches on the antique oak table and chairs that we had rescued from the Hotel Mary-Etta before it was torn down earlier that year; he had worked on it all fall, on the weekends, stripping off all the varnish and staining it before giving it several coats of polyurethane.

The morning of our wedding was cold and cloudy, with a few flakes of snow drifting down. Bill and I broke the cardinal rule that the bride and groom should not see each other the day of the wedding until it was time for the ceremony. Instead, we spent the morning picking up flowers and running other errands together. Throughout that shortest day of the year, Bill kept on embarrassing me when he told anyone who would listen that that night would also be the longest night of the year. Then, that afternoon, Bill and his best man loaded up the furniture into Dad's El Camino and delivered it to our apartment. I was only slightly concerned about their timing.

I had planned to take a long, leisurely bath that afternoon, but there was no time to pamper myself. The house was rapidly filling up with out-of-town relatives who were arriving early for the evening wedding, so our one, small bathroom was inadequate to meet everyone's needs, including mine. And in the bustle of everyone's comings and goings, I forgot to do my nails.

It was still daylight when we headed to the church to get dressed for the wedding, so it must have been around 5:00. My attendants and I, and a few stray cousins, gathered in a Sunday School room to change into our wedding attire. Someone asked me if I had “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” and the traditional “penny in my shoe.” Everything I was wearing was new, and my garter was mostly blue, but I had to borrow an old penny from a bridesmaid to cover the rest. After the ceremony, I removed the penny from my shoe and returned it, over her objections, so I would meet the criteria of that senseless superstition.

I imagine that Bill and his groomsmen donned their tuxes in another classroom down the hall.

The church was exquisitely decorated for Christmas, with extra candles lining the aisle at the front of the church. The lights were dimmed as Dad and I stood at the back of the sanctuary, waiting for our cue to walk down the aisle. Just as we were ready to make our way to the front, where Bill and the others were waiting, Dad said two things to me: "Stand up straight," and "Smile!"

Our friend, Paul, had offered to set up his reel-to-reel recorder so we could have a recording to remember our wedding ceremony, but the recorder malfunctioned, so we never had an audio tape of our wedding. (We've never missed it.)

The photographer’s main camera was either lost or broken, so he was able to take only a limited number of photos with a spare camera during and after the ceremony. He was obviously flustered, hustling us to the basement before we even greeted our guests in the reception line, to cut the cake and exchange bites for the camera, with no one else watching. Then, we hurried back upstairs to greet our guests.

My Grandma Vawser had baked and decorated the chocolate groom's cake, transporting it all the way from Norfolk. Later, when she held her youngest grandson during the wedding ceremony, his diaper leaked, making a wet spot on her dress, which showed up in the formal wedding pictures taken right after the ceremony.

Mom and I both forgot that the bride’s family was traditionally in charge of decorating the fellowship hall for the cake-and-punch reception, so the hall was completely undecorated, except for the white tablecloths the church ladies had put on the tables, with the wedding party's bouquets as impromptu centerpieces. I don't think anyone really noticed or cared that our preparation had fallen short.

After the wedding, many of our out-of-town relatives joined us at the house for an informal supper. That afternoon, Dad had recruited some people to help him devein a big bunch of raw shrimp; he had boiled them and put them on ice. I don't remember what else was served, but no one went hungry. Dad had asked us if we wanted a wedding dance, but we had declined because of the additional expense, not realizing that Mom and Dad both loved wedding dances, and would have been pleased if we had had one. Besides, the Stable was doing so well that they could have easily afforded it. Unfortunately, Dad and I were not known for our communication skills, and Mom was too stressed to intervene in our lack of communication, so the wedding dance never happened.

I remember sitting on the couch, surrounded by relatives, opening presents. That was totally unplanned, but it worked out well. Then, Bill and I changed clothes, loaded up the car, and headed to our new home in Lincoln, 70 miles away. However, our friend, Paul, who had been in charge of hiding Bill's car so it wouldn't be over-decorated by well-meaning friends, arranged for a brief scavenger hunt so Bill could find his car key before we could leave.

Bill persuaded me to sit in the middle of the bench seat of our blue Buick, right next to him. Somewhere between Jansen and Beatrice, he took his wallet out of his back pocket and swerved as he did so, drawing the attention of a cop who was looking for drunk drivers. It was soon obvious that Bill wasn't drunk, so we were congratulated and sent on our way with an admonition to drive carefully.

Bright and early the next morning--well, it might have been closer to noon--Bill and I were in our robes, just finishing breakfast, when a friend knocked on our apartment door, delivering his wedding gift to us--a ten gallon aquarium and a plastic bag filled with a variety of tropical fish. We spent the rest of the day assembling the fish tank. I loved those fish!

Then, the next day, we opened a joint checking account, bought a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and brought it to our new home, where we decorated it with a single string of lights and the eight Christmas ornaments we had received as wedding gifts. 

On Christmas day, we roasted the turkey that Bill was given when he traded cars at Thanksgiving time. (It had been taking up all of the space in our tiny freezer compartment.) Mom and Dad, Dan and Laura, and Aunt Ellen brought the rest of the meal to our apartment, and we all enjoyed Christmas dinner together before they headed to Bloomfield to join my grandparents for supper.

Several people have told me, over the years, that our wedding was one of the most beautiful they have ever attended. Grace Lutheran Church was elegantly decorated for Christmas, the three soloists sang splendidly, and the people we loved the most were gathered with us to celebrate that momentous occasion 50 short years ago. But the wedding and the events leading up to it, as memorable as they are, weren't the important things. It's the marriage, the joining together of two people into one new, lasting family, that's much more important than any wedding. And we have certainly been aware that God has been with us on this whole adventure, leading us, forgiving us, offering grace, mercy, comfort, and peace whenever we need it. He remains faithful. We couldn't do marriage, or life, without him.

Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together. 

Matthew 19:6