Saturday, April 17, 2010

Article #97 Getting Married

Let’s talk about the wedding, reception and the honeymoon. We were married at the end of summer in 1964 in the Salt Lake LDS temple. Their extension had not yet been built and there were limited marriage rooms. Our wedding was the day after school ended at BYU, and 90 other happy couples were waiting to be married. We entered the temple at 7 am with our family and friends hoping to have a wedding brunch around 11 am at the nearby Hotel Utah. The only problem was because of the backlog of weddings scheduled that day, we didn’t get out of the temple till around 5 pm. My mom, the brunch hostess waiting outside the temple was beside herself.

Our reception was scheduled the next evening at the newly finished BYU Alumni House in Provo. All went smoothly there until the reception line formed and my cowboy cousin Bill came through the line. He wanted to talk privately with the groom and quickly whisked my new husband away to an undisclosed destination. Noticing my groom’s absence, Bill talked me into leaving my reception to go and find my better half. Looking back now, I see my cousin was just continuing an age-old family tradition of chivarees.

As newlyweds, we started out married life as poor college students in a rented one-bedroom apartment in Provo with no furniture and little cash. A honeymoon? It was spent painting second hand furniture we bought from Deseret Industries and setting up our first home with used furnishings given us from my new in-laws’ rental apartments. Our wedding night was spent in our new home cleaning off honey from the toilet seat after first discovering it by sitting on it and then remaking our bed which had been short-sheeted. More chivareeing from the best man and his wife who somehow got into our house and quickly did some mischief to help us celebrate our new marriage!

Then began the adjustment to having a new permanent roommate or spouse. Somehow living 24/7 with a person of the opposite sex is not the same as it was having college roommates. As newlyweds, we shared everything from the same tube of toothpaste to laundry chores. This was “real life” and not meant to be easy, but no one had prepared us for this before we married or for little else.

9 comments:

  1. Enjoying the journey as you share your life's history with us.

    I was always glad Rick and I missed out on those 'honeymoon' chivereeing. We married in the 90's, so perhaps it wasn't 'in' anymore!

    BTW, I always wondered how that word 'chiveree' was spelled.

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  2. How true! No one's prepared for the reality of marriage. I suspect even those who live together before being married are unprepared for the reality of being "hitched."

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  3. Alot of learning and guess-work goes on indeed. And is never ending!

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  4. hmmmm... interesting beginning.
    From what you've toldme, it was an interesting marriage as well.

    I thought it would have been harder for mer to adjust to married life since I was such an old hag when I finally took the leap. And Wayne is such an independant person. But, it wasn't bad adjusting to sharing toothpast and chores. It was much tougher having to let someone know where we was going before we grabbed the car keys. Giving up much needed closet space to someone else to hang their clothes wasn't a real favorite, either.

    The first year was definitely the most difficult. It should have been the most fun...but, somehow it wasn't always. We laughed... a LOT! But, there were more hurt feelings in the earlier months of living together...trying to learn how to comfort one another, and express love the way our partner needed to have it expressed, and when to back off and give some space.

    But, we hung in there, and it has absolutely been worth it!

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  5. Did I just say "we was" going??? I believe I did. I may have to put cayenne pepper on my tounge. Or on my fingertips in this case.
    Brother!

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  6. I think you never really know somebody until you share a bathroom with him/her. We are there in all our unvarnished truth, and how and what we share--what condition we leave the bathroom in for the other--says a lot about the state of our hearts. Some days I wonder if it's possible to prepare for life or to prepare another person for life beyond the cultivation of kindness. In the best and worst of times, it seems it's all we have.

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  7. Thanks for sharing this part of your life with us.Your last line from the comment above made me smile.

    Happy Sunday .

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  8. It is so interesting to read about life's experiences. Here is a crazy question...would you do it again? [knowing what you know now]

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  9. honey...yuck...interesting to learn these traditions.

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