I woke up this morning having a conversation with someone in a dream. I was explaining how Garry wanted a “real” wedding while I wanted to elope. So of course, we had a “real” wedding. Garry told me what he wanted and went back to work, fully trusting I would “make it happen.”
I kept working and arranged the wedding. The whole thing. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but we had to have it in his church on Long Island and we were living in Boston, 260 miles away.
Weddings are overrated. Not marriage. I like being married. It’s the wildly expensive ceremonies, the absurdly priced dresses you’ll wear just once. Photographers, videographers, flowers, dinner. I’m also pretty sure we were the only people who invited 86 people and had 107 guests show up.
In the midst of all of this, Garry and his mother were having an ongoing battle for weeks that culminated in the middle of the reception. Weddings!
I never got anything to eat and my feet hurt. The heels I wore to match the dress were not designed for comfort. It was hot day in the middle of September. I had to wear a corset because the dress was strapless and nothing else would support “the girls.” By the time the wedding was over, it was good we were going on a honeymoon immediately or it might have been a very short marriage. A few weeks in Ireland calmed me down.
Thirty-two years later, he’s 80 and I’m 75. Where did the time go? I can’t figure out if it feel like we’ve been married forever or just for a few months. I think it feels like both.
I thought maybe we should get married again. It would be the fourth time, but it’s too late to organize it and anyway I get tired thinking about it. Then I ponder having a small party, but that makes me feel even more exhausted. I was trying to think of a gift for Garry, but anything he needs, he’s already gotten, probably twice. The only thing I needed was a new Kindle and I already ordered it.
How about a nice dinner out? Maybe a few pictures? Garry and I are the only photographers I know, but it would be great to get a picture us together. We’ll find someplace nice and have dinner. Maybe the wait-person can take a picture.
That should do it. I wonder if there’s any place nice still open.
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Categories: #GarryArmstrong, #Photography, Friendship, Marriage, old photograph, Relationships
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Happy Anniversary, Garry & Marilyn! 💞 Thanks for sharing… Love the photos! xoxo
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I have all those wedding pictures. I look at them and think “I was so young.” We weren’t really all that young. Garry was 48 and I was 43, but no one ages these days like they did a generation ago. It was nice to find some use for the pictures, though it left me missing many people who are no longer with us.
But you know what? IT’S RAINING! Not as heavily as they promised, but it has been raining all day since early in the morning! The world has cooled down. It’s humid, but I think that’s what happens when it rains. Not much of a day for parties and barbeques, but were any of us planning a party? I can’t remember the last time we “partied.” It had to be more than 10 years ago, maybe longer.
Happy long end of summer weekend! Enjoy the rain!
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Raining here too and we sure need it! Our partying days are long gone, but we do love to reminisce and look back at those young and beautiful photos every now and then. Glad we took so many! Time flies… Enjoy your long summer weekend too! xo
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It’s still raining. I think harder than earlier. I bet we’re going to go from dry to flooded overnight. A little moderation would be nice 😀
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Happy Anniversary, Marilyn and Gary! Thank you for sharing your lovely wedding pictures with us – you both look so good. I know exactly what you mean about not knowing if you’ve been married for months or forever, but it feels like both. We feel exactly the same. The time does indeed vanish in a flash, but then you can’t really remember much about life before you met your spouse. Time is a strange thing indeed, and I wish we could travel in it so we could relive some of those wonderful days and events in our pasts.
We only had nine people at our wedding, and we got married by a real fire in Sulgrave Manor, a modest 16th-century manor house that belonged to George Washington’s ancestors. I wore a purple crushed velvet dress suit. We had champagne in the rustic kitchen afterwards and an intimate lunch back in the great hall, with a chocolate wedding cake I made myself. Then we jumped over a broomstick to get married ‘witchy style’ before heading off for our honeymoon in York. It was a pretty simple affair, but it was sheer bliss.
I hope you enjoy your special day, however you celebrate it. 🙂 ❤
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THAT sounds perfect. I didn’t want the crowd or really, the church but they were important to Garry. There was no compromise between what I wanted and what he wanted. Rather than make it an issue, we did it his way. It was fine. Not my dream wedding, but a good one with lots of music from people we cared about. It was also the last time I saw my mother’s family, so that was important. By then my mother was gone, but her remaining brothers and sisters came and that was good because they are all gone long since.
Mostly, my problem was juggling full time work and a wedding taking place a 4-hour drive away from our home. I could have used some help!
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You did a fantastic job and I’m forever in your debt. In retrospect, sorry I caused so many headaches.
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HI Marilyn, I really enjoyed seeing your wedding pictures. I had a white wedding too and I have fond memories of it. I had never organised an occasion before and, as a result, I had not expectation that anything could go wrong. As far as I was concerned, nothing did go wrong. It was a perfect day. The fact that you and Garry are still married is what counts though, not how you got there.
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The wedding was fine. The problem was I was organizing it from a few hundred miles distant. If someone else had been handling all those details, I would have been fine. As it was, I was working full time AND trying to get the wedding put together. It was a lot of work and I could have used some help. THAT being said, it was a lovely ceremony — and obviously, the marriage worked!
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It is a cliché, I know, but where did the time go? Hey, we are still friends. Hard to do with an old fart like me.
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I was happy to be one of the people at that ceremony.
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And we were happy to have you there 😀 It was a nice wedding. We actually put more planning into the ceremony than the reception. Garry became the Cecil B. DeMille of wedding ceremonies and we had a lot of music — and of course, that bagpiper. That was, as Garry put it, “the show.” I liked the wedding. If only we could have left BEFORE the reception and had the party AFTER the honeymoon!
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I – the reporter – memorized my “lines” for the ceremony. Everything on one take. YOWZA!
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Yes, Don. You were there and THANKS for being part of our ceremony. It’ll be great to see you again while we are still breathing and our brains are still functioning. Yes, that’s a broad hint.
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I am inclined to agree that weddings are overrated. People spend a small fortune on clothes, food, flowers etc for just one day. Worse these days people have “destination weddings” which means the prospective guests must fork out money to travel to whatever exotic location the happy couple thinks will look good in the wedding photos.
David and I knew exactly what we wanted to do. His family took a bit of convincing but in the end, as we were paying for most of it ourselves, we got what we wanted, a railway themed wedding. The Dining Car we used for our reception only held about 50 people so we were able to keep the numbers down, I bought my dress in a department store, a cousin made the cake and another cousin paid for the photographer as our gift.
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We knew Boston’s mayor well (and we are still friends, to this day), so I thought we could have the mayor marry us at old City Hall (the one built in the 1700s, not the ugly new one built in the 1960s), then adjourn to a local restaurant where we knew the food and the staff, eat and be off to the airport which was a hop, skip, and jump in Boston.
BUT Garry wanted to be married in his hometown church AND with the same minister (who had to come out of retirement). His brother (brilliant musician) had to sing and then we had to have a bagpiper. My maid of honor and other bridesmaid (I only had two) both had to sing (good voices, just complicated), and Garry’s mother, who wan’t contributing but was sure she could invite as many people as she wanted, went head to head with Garry … AND we had to do it inconveniently far from home. Which was the REAL problem. The rest wasn’t a big issue, but I was working, so I had to trust other people to pick the food and the cake and the flowers. I couldn’t be there.
I understood how he felt. He was sure he’d only marry once and he wanted it to be “perfect.” It was HIS version of perfect, not mine. It’s hard to argue with Garry when his mind is made up. REALLY hard. Actually, it’s hard to argue with ANY of the Armstrongs!
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Yeah, it IS hard to argue with those people.
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I guess that is a complication when someone who has been married before marries someone who hasn’t.
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My other weddings were very small too. I just hate spending tons of money on a party. I think I’d like receptions better if you could have them AFTER the honeymoon! And I didn’t have to wear a dress I’d never wear again and oh those miserable high heels!
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I’m with you there.
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A happy anniversary to you both. Stay happy.
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Easy peasy. We’ve moved passed all the complicated stuff years ago 🎶
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That’s awesome. 💖
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Time solves many problems.
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Yes, it does. What was very important becomes less so.
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Sadje, thank you.
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You’re most welcome Garry.
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John and I often ask the waitperson to take a picture. It works. Sometimes a camera, sometimes a phone, It doesn’t matter does it? It’s the memory that counts.
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Some of our best pictures have been taken by strangers in parking lots.
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Rich, you’re right about the memories. Nothing filtered here.
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how wonderful and how things change over time –
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Yes. Now I’d INSIST we elope, but I was still into compromising, which is to say, doing it his way. Time makes one tougher 💕
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It does, and in a good way, I think
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It’s just that this was Garry’s perfect wedding and no one seemed to even ask me what I wanted. It was just so much easier to give in than make it a major battle. BUT it was exhausting and by the time the wedding was over, I was ready for a rest home.
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Are you resting right now…, quick this is your chance!
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Quick getaway? Where’s the sidedoor, Bro?
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Yes, Beth. And, as I always say, I am still a work in progress.
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