We got married quite young.  I was engaged as a senior in high school.  My fiancé at the time, now my husband of 59 years, was two years older than me.  We had dated on and off since I was 15.  Unbelievable.  They said it would never last.On to the wedding day.  Planning the wedding was a rather uncomplicated affair compared to the two weddings I helped plan for my two daughters.  I was the first in my immediate family to get married and had no idea how to plan this.  My mom was not a planner, so I was basically on my own.  

I decided (with the help of a friend) to have an all-white wedding.  This means that my bridesmaid’s dresses were also white.  The flowers I chose were yellow roses.  The only difference other than style was that they were short whereas my dress was long.  I think my dress was really cool in that it was sort of created out of my little brain. 

First of all, my cousin had a brocade dress made for her installation into Job’s Daughters that I attended.  I loved the style, so had my dress fashioned around that.  Mine was different in that it was long-sleeved, it was, of course, white, made of brocade, with a neckline up to my neck.  I was very skinny at the time and wanted to cover protruding bones that I was blessed with in my neck.  One thing that I think was really cool was I designed the train to look like a large floppy bow.  The two tails of the bow flowed behind me and were my train.  I still love this idea.

Then there was the fact that in the year 1963 our wedding being on July 6th, was probably one of the hottest days of the year.  With long sleeves, up to the neck, and long rather heavy material, I thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion.  

For my flowers, I chose yellow roses.  The bridesmaid’s bouquets were mixed yellow and white flowers with green ivy and other greenery.  

I had my dress made by someone in the Madison area.  While picking up the dress and bringing it home, the car I was driving died.  This involved oil shooting out from the back and basically, the car was dead.  The car I was driving was my fiancé’s, and I had to call him to come and help me while he was involved in his bachelor’s party.  Since it is considered bad luck to have your future husband see your wedding dress prior to the wedding I had to cover the dress up with blankets that we, fortunately, had in the car.   

My wedding was a candlelight service.  I thought this was such a romantic idea.  The only thing I didn’t put into consideration was the fact that we married on July 6th, and that meant that daylight savings time was in effect and, therefore, it was still light outside.  I guess in the whole scheme of things it really didn’t matter, but it would have been nice if the candlelight was more effective.

We had dinner in the basement of our church.  We then went on a honeymoon to a cottage in northern Wisconsin.  Not having spent all that much alone time, we got bored, no tv, bad weather, and came home early to paint cupboards in our apartment. Talk about stupid.  Boy, that wouldn’t happen today, but when you are young you do things differently.  Today cupboards could definitely wait.

On our first night of wedded bliss, we had a close friend who discovered that we actually stayed in our apartment for the first night.  He continued to call, then came to the apartment and continued to call for us for many, many hours.  We also sat under our window and listened to someone who had attended our wedding talk about “Poor dumb Artie” for getting married.  It was quite entertaining.  

We had a nice wedding and it certainly was a memorable day.

Fifty-nine years and pushing we are still hanging in there!!  Who would have thought?

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