A Love Story continued ...

The end of the school year rushed upon us and summer was beginning. That led to the final plans for the wedding and a few missteps along the way, such as …I was busy selling shoes and Jody was working at a nursing home. She moved into our trailer and I was rooming at my brother and sister in law’s house. When we were able to be together we were planning the wedding and our lives. We were planning a wedding while being 4 hours away from where the wedding would take place. That caused some problems and made some appointments difficult since both of us worked some on the weekends. One big issue that nearly became a disaster was the blood test. That’s right folks when we got married 35 ½ years ago a blood test was required as part of the marriage license process. Unlike a TV show these could not be done and results returned within an hour. With almost no time to spare we realized this had been missed in the planning process. We had to both take off work and make a quick, unplanned trip to her hometown for the blood test. Tension was very high for that trip and that is all the details I care to share with you.

We had the tension of the final plans, dresses and tuxes being fitted. Scrambling to get all the addresses to for the people who were being invited is always interesting, thank goodness for mothers who kept up to date lists. (A trait neither of us has continued, sorry kids.) Planning everyone’s arrival for the rehearsal, wedding and where people might stay while in attendance was an issue I didn’t see coming. Selecting who would be in the wedding party was not a difficult one for me, and I don’t remember it being difficult for Jody either. Given my friends and who was available it worked out well.

The planning of the honeymoon was relatively easy. We had almost no money so the plans had to be very simple and very cheap. For those who know us well you will not be surprised at the events we took in on our honeymoon. (That will come in another post.) During this time of planning I remember a time when we were planning and we began to speculate and dream about the future. We were trying to figure out how we were going to make it financially once we were married and school started since I would not be able to keep working full time. We began to talk about “what ifs …” I am smiling as think back on that conversation when we declared that if we could just to the point that we made $10,000 a year we would have it made! My how times have changed. One thing this shows is that the money is never the biggest issue, because things will keep changing. The bigger issue is your relationships, including the relationship with Jesus Christ

We got settled and involved in a local church that we decided would be our church. This was an important decision. I realize now that it was also very important that we did not wait to get involved. We started helping with the youth and even in children’s church. The youth involvement has been an ongoing theme for our entire married life it seems.

And now for the wedding ...