I was not nearly as concerned with the minutiae of planning my wedding as I was with the marriage that would follow. In 1975, I married the love of my life (Don) following an almost three year engagement. Three years in which we finished college degrees, endured parents on both sides who did not want to let go of us, and tried to forge our way through it as a couple. Our parents did not observe our couple hood, however….because the wedding had not actually happened, and until it did they all tried in various ways to keep us from making what they all thought was a mistake.
Our day was not about us so much as it was about what our parents did or did not want, what they would or would not wear or do. At least that’s what my attention seemed to be unwillingly drawn to. Our ceremony was, however, a lovely, meaningful moment we savored just for us. No video in those days, but we do have an original reel to reel audio tape which has since been reproduced to cassette, and later to the computer. Our friend Randy Lambert sang the Lord’s Prayer and it brought tears to our eyes. Randy eventually became an opera singer until he lost his life to AIDS in 1986.
Today we are married almost 41 years, and I am so grateful that I have this wonderful man who is my husband, partner, my friend, my lover, the father of our sons.
it wasn’t about the wedding at all. It was the marriage we made together.
Pam Edwards-HoffmannGrew up in Royal Oak, MI, graduated 1971 from RODHS, graduated 1975 from Oakland University (Rochester, MI), married a wonderful man in 1975 in MI and haven't lived there since. Lived in Ohio for 25 years, during which time I got my MSSA (masters in social science application) from Case Western Reserve University, had two beautiful sons, and moved to Columbia, SC in 2000.
Thanks for reminding us that what’s important about a wedding is the relationship it embodies. Still, I’m glad you can look back fondly on the ceremony itself. Did your parents ever recognize their mistake and accept you as a couple?
John, in answer to your question I do believe that eventually our parents did accept that we could manage our lives ourselves. My Dad did call me every week to ask “how things were going” during our first year! Don and I were both the youngest children in our families and I think that it was difficult for our parents to allow the natural separation to occur.
Good for them—and for you, for showing them what’s important.
Thanks for sharing this story Pam. Very moving that your friend, now lost, sang and you have a recording of it.
Thanks for this frank description of another passage into marriage — defining yourselves in the light of parental disapproval. Resistance can create good stuff. Congrats!