One Loooooong Decade

Ten years ago today, Jason and I stood before a loopy deacon who had only performed one other wedding besides ours and promised to love, honor, and obey 'til death do us part. I should have known by the craziness of the ceremony that we were in for an interesting, eventful ten years.

I converted to Catholicism the year before we got married. I did this partly because Jason is sorta Catholic (he wan't confirmed and isn't a really big church-goer, but he went through all the motions as a kid) and partly because I found the Catholic mass more in line with my religious preference than the fire-and-brimstone revivals of my evangelical childhood churches. I adored Father Britt, the priest at the church where I was baptised and planned to be married, but a month before the ceremony he asked if the deacon could perform the ceremony instead as he had been asked to co-preside at a parishioner's half-Catholic, half-Jewish ceremony that same evening. At the time, it seemed fine; we were doing the abridged version with no communion, and as long as we finished up as husband and wife and I got to wear my pretty white dress for 45 minutes, I didn't care.

I should have cared.

The deacon's ignorance of the procedure for a modern Catholic wedding became apparent in the first 5 minutes of the rehearsal. Our church had a great pre-wedding coordinator who met with me twice in the six months before the wedding helping me finalize the readings, the songs, and making everything fit into the liturgy for a Catholic-light wedding. The deacon apparently hadn't gotten any of her memos.

He questioned the music. He questioned the order we were doing things. He puzzled over the readings. He asked us for a vessel to bless our rings and acted scandalized when we had no idea what he was talking about. By the time Jason and I practiced our procession out of the church, I was in tears. I need order and predictabiliy. I don't procrastinate. I plan my bowel movements a month in advance. (Not really, but oh that I could.) My plans for a beautiful, personal, and still-organized and very Catholic wedding had gotten thrown out a fake stained-glass window. I cried all the way to the future in-laws' house for the rehearsal hoe-down.

Someone put a tumbler of cheap white zinfandel in my hand upon my arrival. It was Jason's best man and the third member of our "Great Triumvirate" in high school. I was assured that he would take over if things started going wrong and if the deacon started to skip over anything like he had done in rehearsal. He also assured me he would find the darned vessel we were asked to supply for the rings (he ended up using a brass ashtray shaped like a seashell.) Seriously, the church didn't have a dedicated something-or-other for the blessing of the rings? Somehow, though, it seems fitting that our rings, the symbols of our everlasting union, were made sacred in a random knick-knack that the best man found in a drawer at his grandmother's house.

An hour and a wine-buzz later, I was line-dancing to "Boot-Scootin' Boogie" with my sister on the in-laws' concrete backyard and readying myself emotionally for a disappointing wedding by getting toasted.

To this day, I don't remember that much about our wedding ceremony. Not because of the cheap wine the night before. But because I was the on-the-fly wedding coordinator. I was watching every step our officiant made, correcting him at several points (If you listen closely on our wedding tape, you can hear me hissing, "Unity candle!" after the deacon rather rudely and wrongly cued my sister-in-law to do the prayers of the faithful.) I knew our born-leader best man would do anything short of tackling the deacon to give me the wedding I had planned for for months (actually, I think he may have taken great pleasure at taking out the deacon) but I felt like the whole thing was in my hands. After we were pronounced man and wife (and after improvising our kiss, as Deacon Dumbass forgot to say, "You may now kiss the bride") I felt a great burden lift off my shoulders. We had somehow pulled our wedding out of chaos, and most importantly, I had my man.

Looking back, that wedding was perfect for us. I can be a control freak, but neither Jason or I take ourselves very seriously. A big, fluffy, perfect ceremony would not have fit. I am glad I can look back at the seashell ashtray and orders hissed under my breath and get the giggles. That's really who we are.

And these first ten years haven't gone exactly as planned, either. If you've read this blog, you know we've had a rough beginning. We both realized classroom teaching wasn't for us and admitted defeat, spending two years going back to school to go into different careers. The in-laws' house caught fire and the entire second floor and most of the contents of the first floor were destroyed. Jason lost a beloved grandmother and his stepdad, who was more a father to him than his "real" dad ever was. I lost my dad to cancer shortly after battling it myself. We almost lost his mom last year. But we're here. We're together. And we're ready for the next ten years (we think.)

Here's hoping for a more quiet, less eventful decade. But I know that's as unrealistic a dream as a "perfect" wedding. I can handle whatever comes my way, though, as long as my Jason is by my side, to laugh with, to cry with.

And as long as we have people in our lives to bail us out with brass ashtrays and tumblers of wine when the situation calls for it.