35 Years Ago

It has been a busy day, but all day I have been thinking about the excitement from 35 years ago. Of course that was pre-cell phone days and maybe that was a good thing (at least for me). Jennifer had all kinds of challenges the morning of the wedding (which I thankfully did not know about until after the wedding).

One of the vases for the flowers going on the alter got broke and she tore one of her contact lenses. Somebody went and got another vase. Of course it was before daily wear disposable contact lenses and I can assure you there was no way in hell she was getting married in her glasses. Her Mom tracked down the optometrist, and told him to meet at his office and they were able to get a replacement contact. Then of course the priest that was marrying us was cutting it extremely close (actually he was late) because he was extremely hung over from our rehearsal dinner celebration.

Like I have mentioned before my father-in-law Mick dubbed the wedding the “Grand Finale” because for him it was. Jennifer being the baby of the family was the last to get married. Now Mick was a intimidating character, but I think I got off the easiest from all my other brother-in-laws when I asked him for permission to marry Jennifer. He was agreeable and pretty darn quick. I think he was ready for the Grand Finale. When he gave me her hand at the alter, he said no deposit no return. I was not sure if he was joking or not. Looking back he was not joking.

Our wedding was pretty big. We got married in St Ann’s church, which is a fairly large church and it was pretty much filled. My friend Mike Dolan who was a groomsman had a old 1955 Cadillac Limousine from the funeral home that had been restored. So he drove us to the reception in that.

Our reception was at the old Blaine school up in Walkerville and it was a large reception. My nephew Mike Benner and his friend Kurt were sent to get more bread a couple of times. We had a great time at the reception and it was a relief to have the big day behind us. A lot of our family and friends had busted their humps to give us a grand day and they succeeded. It was a beautiful day for a Grand Finale.

While it was questionable for a while, everything went off without a hitch. We had the honeymoon suite at the Copper King that night and then we left for Coeur d’Lane, Idaho for our honeymoon the next morning.

Well enough for today.