Not Even Halfway There

Nov. 19, 1983

Most wedding pictures show the bride looking radiant but demure. Eyes cast down, blushing prettily, serene but remote.

Not my wedding pictures. In almost every single one of the photos from Husband's and my wedding day  I'm grinning like the village idiot, big ol' ear-to-ear smiles that show a double row of teeth. I look as if I've just won the lottery--because that's how I felt.

I was 28 years old when I met Husband, and I'd pretty much accepted my lot in life as the crazy spinster aunt who brings bourbon balls to the Christmas dinner and doesn't know how to support a baby's head. But then, at a young adult party at a new church I was attending, I met a nice guy who tried to set me up with his best friend, and 29 years ago today that nice guy and I had the most perfect wedding ever, and that includes the wedding that featured Pippa Middleton's rear end.

Of course, the inappropriateness of the previous statement pretty much sums up what Husband has had to put up with over the years. He should have known: Right after the picture above was snapped, I was a little too vigorous in feeding Husband that first bite of wedding cake, and he was Not Happy about the resulting icing-smeared mustache. (What? I thought that was what I was supposed to do.) Friends sitting in the front row were afraid they may have witnessed the shortest marriage in history.

Instead, for better or worse, today I have officially been married longer than I have not been married.

We told ourselves when we were engaged that because we were relatively elderly to be getting married for the first time, we would only shoot for 70 years together instead of 80. With 41 years left to meet this goal it's good to know we're still on the uphill side, because this is still really fun and I'm still grinning like the village idiot.