I had to go alone to pick out a wedding dress. I had no one to go with me. It was a very grueling and overwhelming experience for me. Originally, I picked out a dress that had an extremely long train on it. The sales lady pressured me into buying it. I felt like I tried on about 1,000 dresses. Eventually, I came to my senses and purchased an A-line dress instead.
I didn't intend to have a big wedding. In fact, if it had been up to me, the only people attending the wedding would've been me, my future husband, and the minister. I was certainly not going to tell anyone in my own family because they have ruined every special occasion I've ever had in my life that they were involved in. And since my husband's family were not involved with us very much during most of our relationship up to that point, I didn't see the need for them to be there either.
I completed all of my preparations and set about focusing on my weight. I think I partly did that to keep my mind off of how overwhelming the entire situation was to me. Getting married to my husband felt right and I had no issues with that. I just didn't like the whole trappings of a ceremony. I would've been just as happy to go to a courthouse and get married in a simple dress, but my husband insisted we had to do it in a church with a full wedding dress and so forth. I think he was trying to give me what he thought every girl dreamed of. Unfortunately for him, I was not one of those little girls at the age of 12 dreaming of my wedding. In fact, I never thought I would get married. I never thought I would find anyone. All the marriages I was exposed to when I was young were not the best of examples, so I wasn't even sure if I wanted to be a part of that. It was only because my husband was so different from every other person I've ever met that I even considered becoming attached to him and then marrying him. I was always extremely wary of getting stuck with a man who ended up being like my dad. That's the last thing on earth I wanted.
My husband originally wanted to get married on Christmas Eve, but as he found out, every church is kind of busy on Christmas Eve. Therefore, we settled for the 27th because it was the first Saturday after Christmas that year. It was nice because we didn't really have to decorate the church at all because it was still decorated for Christmas.
As I said, if it had been up to me it would've just been me, the minister, and my future husband at the ceremony. Unfortunately, his family found out about it and they all assumed that they were invited. His son had decided he wanted to move his family back to the town that we were living in. He had grown up there and I think he had nostalgic ideas about what it was going to be like. I don't think the experience was very good for any of his family and they ended up moving away less than two years later. But for the time being, they were living in one of the houses that my husband owned and paying us rent. They had just moved in and because they were right next-door there was no way that we could not invite them to our wedding. Then, once my husband's daughter found out that her brother was going to be at the wedding, she insisted that she had to be there as well. I wasn't very happy about it, but I couldn't really say anything. I knew they were going to ruin my wedding day though, and to some degree they did.
The morning of the wedding, I got up and went to get my hair and make up done. The sales lady had talked me into purchasing this very heavy tiara that was clearly too big for my head. If I had it to do over again, having more knowledge about such things now, I wouldn't have purchased that particular tiara. However, my hairstylist at the time was extremely good and she found a way to make that tiara fit on my head and stay there without falling off. I believe she might've use like three cans of hairspray or something!
The lady who was doing my make up was very nosy and kept asking me questions that were none of her business. At one point she asked me if my husband's daughter was my mother. When anyone ever asks me about my mother, I always very pointedly and sharply explain to them that my mother is dead. That usually ends the conversation very quickly, as it did in this case. My husband's daughter was staying at a hotel near the place I got my hair done, so I went there to change into my wedding dress. We managed to cram myself, my hair, and my dress into her small rental car and proceeded toward the church, which was on the beach. Unfortunately, the tiara decided to fall off my head at that point and my hair completely collapsed. We quickly made a U-turn and hightailed it back to the salon. My hairstylist was kind enough to come outside to the car and fix my hair and help me fit myself back into the car. We then drove directly to the church and prayed that my hair would at least stay up through the wedding ceremony.
When we arrived, I was very disheveled and wanted to rearrange myself, but my husband's son decided it was a good time to film me.
I hadn't even gotten out of the car before he poked a camera in my face. I told him I didn't want to be on film yet because I wasn't completely ready, but he followed me all the way to the dressing room at the church.
My husband had decided to include his two kids in our wedding by giving them each the task of filming the Ceremony. My husband's son was to film him during the ceremony and his daughter was to film me.
At the end of it, I was extremely upset because my husband's son got some very good pictures. He was filming right up to the point where they started playing "Here Comes The Bride". Then, the second I step out into the aisle, he shut off the camera! I have no good pictures of myself walking down the aisle. Meanwhile, his daughter filmed the entire ceremony completely out of focus and blurry so that you can't see anything. My husband's son spent hours filming the ground. It was clear to me that neither one of them gave a damn about the ceremony! I was so upset that after it was over, I demanded that my husband and I get dressed up in our wedding clothes again and have professional photos taken so that I would have something to remember it.
I had been stressed out for months and particularly that day, but as I stepped into the aisle, that feeling of calm swept over me again and I knew that what I was doing was right. I had no one to walk me down the aisle. I just went down the aisle by myself and I practically ran to my husband. The ceremony went perfectly and I was happy that we were married and it was over now. These types of events always seem better to me in retrospect than they do when they're actually happening.
My husband's son had fixed up his 1967 Vista Cruiser with tin cans and noisemakers and so on. After that day, we always referred to the car as our wedding chariot. As we were driving away after the ceremony, finally all the weight lifted off of me. I was so happy to have that part of it over. Now it would just be the two of us again. I've never been able to feel overwhelming happiness. I don't know why, but pleasant feelings are never overwhelming to me— not like unpleasant feelings. But I probably felt as happy that day as I've ever felt in my life.
Here are some of the beautiful things that my husband owned and some of the things that he gave to me. With each gift I would feel both happiness and sadness. I knew that one day these things would be all I would have left of him. He was so proud of all of his treasures. He grew up without a lot of money and I think the fact that he could purchase nice-looking things made him feel like he had achieved something in his life. The house we lived in was like a museum. I was surrounded by beautiful things and he had them in cabinets with lights on dimmer switches. Many of the statues would be sitting out in the open. He had art all over the walls. His favorite type of art was Art Deco. One of his favorite painters was Salvador Dali. He had a copy of the painting of The Discovery of America By Christopher Columbus that was one of his most prized possessions. Another artist he liked was Erte. We had several of his paintings and statues all over our house. When you came into the entryway to our house you were greeted by The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.
I never knew much about art until I met my husband. One of the things that always astounded me about him is how completely well-balanced he was. On one hand, he was very logical. He had degrees in math and engineering. A lot of his thought processes were very logical and he was very interested in science. He worked for NASA at one point, as well as working for the government during the Cold War. On the other hand, he liked art and music and was very appreciative of beauty in many forms. He was a musical prodigy. He could pick up any instrument, even if he'd never seen it before, and be playing it like a pro within an hour. When he was younger, he and his first wife and a friend toured the country as a trio. My husband played the piano, his wife played the guitar and sang, and their friend played the drums. They used to tour around and play at Holiday Inn's all over America. However, after their kids were born, my husband didn't think that was a good way to raise children. His wife wanted to continue touring and singing. They eventually divorced and he kept the kids and raised them by himself. Although I think the split hurt him a lot, he tried to make it as amicable as possible. He told me about how his lawyer tried to get him to paint his ex-wife as a bad mother. He flat out refused to do so. I think he ended up having to pay her a lot of alimony, which is part of the reason why he was very wary after that of women trying to take all of his money. He worked very hard for his money and I completely understand why he felt that way. I would feel the same way too.
When I was younger, my father ended up in a similar situation with my first stepmother. Their marriage ended because she was cheating on my dad with her second husband. She had divorced him and met my dad while he was in jail for armed robbery. After he got out of jail, he saw no reason to stop seeing my stepmother, even though she was married to my dad. However, after their divorce, my dad still ended up having to pay her alimony for years. That never made any sense to me. It was her fault the marriage ended, so I don't understand why my dad had to pay her alimony.
Anyway, as I said, now all this "stuff" is all I have left of him. I have to say it's pretty meaningless to me without him here. I always tried to explain that to him, but I don't know if he ever really understood it. His stuff didn't mean anything without him. When I was forced into the psych ward against my will in 2009, my husband had to be at our house by himself for a couple of days. At one point, after I got out, he told me that when I was gone there was no color. He said everything seem to be in black-and-white and none of his stuff mattered because I wasn't there. I told him, "That's how I feel when you're not here. That's what I've been trying to tell you all this time. When I'm here and you're all the way across the country working, none of this stuff means anything to me. It's just stuff". I think for the first time he finally got what I meant.
A lot of it is packed away now. I can't get a lot of it out and look at it because it's too upsetting to me, even after more than two years. I think that's why I've been putting off going through my stuff. I'm dreading it so much. It's going to be so hard. I'm hoping the fact that this will be the last time I have to do it it's going to make it easier.
Hmmm. . . Well it looks like a lot of my pictures didn't come out. I could see them before I posted the reply. Maybe I'll try to post them again.
here are our carousel horses. They were like our children. The bottom one is named Esmerelda. She's in my bedroom right now. She's the one that I talk to the most. I don't have room for the other three in my current condo, so they're hidden in the closet.
Their names are, from top to bottom: Victoria,
Fancy, Belle, and (of course) Esmerelda.
My husband gave them all their names.
Okay, well clearly something is going on with my pictures. they aren't posting the way they're supposed to. I can see them before I post them but then when I try to post them, they don't show up.
Fancy
Well, I guess I'll just quit trying to post pictures because they don't seem to want to post.
I think something must be going on with my phone because it will look like the picture isn't posted, then when I look again it is posted, then when I look the next time it's gone again.
Anyway, thank you all for listening to me and supporting me on this difficult day. I'm going to take a short break right now I think. I'll probably be back in a little while to post some more stuff, if I can think of another story to tell.
Words can't even. This is probably one of the saddest most beautiful threads I've read here. Thank you so much for sharing, you've stolen a piece of my heart.
Oh, thank you for the support and for listening to me. This is my third year in a row doing this now. I think having the site and being able to talk to people about it is helping me a lot. Otherwise I would've been spending the day pacing around my apartment crying all day. That's what I did last year.
