Never My Love/Believe

"How can you think love will end,

when I've asked you to spend

your whole life with me?

Never my love"

('Never My Love' by The Association)

Three years ago I married my best friend. I realize this is a rather common occurrence for people and as such has become a cliche thing to say. But it is true. As most cliches tend to be. My husband is my best friend.

It was a warm spring day three years ago. Nothing like the cold dreary day we had today. It was windy, all my relatives from the mountains of Pennsylvania had no idea how to handle the wind. Bu the sun was shining and the temperature was pretty warm for mid-May in northern Ohio.

We were married in an old-fashioned country church by Curtis' childhood minister. Curtis prepared the aisle for me, paving the way for his bride, by unrolling the aisle runner. Softly playing in the background was the love theme from Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet, a song called 'Kissing You'. Within the song Romeo whispers, "did my heart love til now? For swear it sight, I never saw true beauty til this night."

Left to Right: Alisha in blue, Rachel in green (our favorite color)
Melanie in pink (the color for her wedding the yr. before), and
Pam in purple. And of course, me in white.   :)

My bridesmaids, each in a different color of the same dress, followed after. Pam and Alisha scattered flowers in place of a flower girl;  Rachel carried the rings on a hand-made cross-stitched pillow my mom had made;  and Melanie carried a vintage tussey-mussey bouquet. The song chosen for my bridesmaids was 'Anne's Theme' from the movie Anne of Green Gables, one of my very most favorite movies from childhood.

I wore my mom's veil, and the lace from her dress was used on my ballet shoes. I had my grandmother's first engagement ring from 1939 made into a necklace for the occasion. My bouquet was fashioned after some photos my great-aunt had taken at a wedding she went to in the 1950s.  I debated between several different songs for coming down the aisle, everything from 'Moon River' to the love theme from 'Shakespeare in Love', but the clear choice soon became a gorgeous version of 'Amazing Grace' that I'd fallen in love with as a kid.

Our recessional after the wedding was 'I Do Believe in Fairies' from the live-action version of Peter Pan. It's such an exuberant and joyful song, and hello, I do believe in fairies. It was followed by Glenn Miller's 'In the Mood' which set the tone for the vintage reception our guests were about to enjoy.

We rented an antique Excalibur limousine to get from the church to our reception at Snook's Dream Cars, an antique car museum in Bowling Green. There we switched to a 1936 Auburn to make our entrance. It was really fun being driven into our reception and taking everyone by surprise. I remember sitting out in the car with Curtis and just giggling together in anticipation for our big entrance.

One of my favorite moments from the entire day came when we had to cut our cake. I'd arranged to have 'So This Is Love' from Disney's Cinderella play while we cut the cake. Our cake topper fit our vintage theme perfectly--a vintage bride and groom in an open-top limo. Actually cutting cake proved to be an adventure. We realized that we had no idea how to cut a cake that large together. For whatever reason, instead of melting down,  I dissolved into laughter at the absurdity of the situation. The pictures of us holding this giant knife and just laughing our heads off really capture that moment. It turns out that those unplanned moments are sometimes the best.

Our first dance was to Josh Groban's song 'Believe' from the movie Polar Express. Several songs were in the running, songs by Mercy Me, Delirious, a couple oldies tunes, a Big Daddy Weave song. I just happened to mention this song once to Curtis in one of the many conversations I forced him to have about this topic (I tend to talk things to death and he tends to like to make quick decisions), and he was adamant that was the song he wanted. We both like Josh Groban, trains, and Christmas...but it was the chorus of the song that won me over---"believe in what your heart is saying, feel the melody that's playing. there's no time to waste, there's so much to celebrate. Believe in what you feel inside and give your dreams the wings to fly. You have everything you need, if you just believe."



It somehow seems appropriate that there is
a giant Ford sign over our heads in this
shot of one of my favorite moments.



The other song I remember dancing to (clearly the music was a huge element to me) was The Association's 'Never My Love'. This is one of my favorite songs for so many reason. First, I'm a big oldies fan in general so I love the actual sound of this song. And second, the lyrics are amazing. I won't share all of them, but the first verse pretty much sums up the entire song, "you ask me if there'll come a time when I grow tired of you, never my love, never my love." For many reasons,  none of them really related to Curtis, I felt insecure in our relationship for a long time. I'd always ask him if he loved me, sometimes multiple times a day. I always knew he would say yes, but I liked getting the reassurance. This song speaks to that very idea. I remember dancing with him, and several other couples being out on the floor as well....my brother and his wife, my brother-in-law and his wife, my mom and her boyfriend, my brother's in-laws, my dad and my step-mom. I remember thinking that it was cool to share this song and this dance with people that I love.

For me, the wedding was really made in the details. We personalized as much as we possibly could. I had friends read poems that I absolutely love, one by Lucy Maud Montgomery and the other by Christopher Marlowe. We had family members read selections from the Bible. Every song choice was full of meaning, even the ones just for dancing and having fun, like 'Hang on Sloopy'. Our guests tossed that special wedding rice that isn't really rice mixed with lavender, which was actually an old wedding tradition. And while many things didn't go according to 'plan', my biggest regret was not training Shiloh to be the ring bearer, or at least arranging for some pictures to be taken with him that day. After all, he is our 'first born ruff'.

I've written about my wedding before, but always in the context of my being a compulsive planner and a bit of a control freak. I've always presented the glass half-empty version of our wedding, even if it was intending to show some self-criticism/realizations. But the fact of the matter is, we had a beautiful wedding. And the even bigger fact of the matter is, it wouldn't really matter if we'd had an absolutely awful wedding or an absolutely perfect one. It's our marriage that counts. The last three years have been filled with good things. We've grown as a couple, we've bought our first house, got a family car, and another dog. We're trying for kids and learning so much about ourselves and our relationship through that process. In just three years it feels like we've grown up and changed so much. But one thing is the same as it was three years ago, and the same as it was five years ago when we met...Curtis is my best friend.

"We'll always be friends forever."--Tod the Fox

"Yead, Tod."--Copper the Hound Dog

(The Fox & The Hound...the movie we watched on our first date)