When David proposed to me I had just turned 20 years old. He was 22, and had already been married once. I looked younger than I was so when COMPLETE STRANGERS saw the engagement ring on my finger I would get a lot of what they deemed “sound advice” about how I was too young and should wait to get engaged, let alone married. All I can say is, I hadn’t had a lot of experience in love, but when you know, you KNOW. And it’s best for other people to keep their mouths shut on the subject – especially if you only know the bride-to-be because she develops your photos in an hour.
We got engaged on December 17, 2000 and had no idea how to plan a wedding. After looking into a few venues and realizing we could never afford the prices (we had to pay for it out of pocket – on our own) we decided to have the wedding at David’s Mom’s house. The original plan was December 2001. Then the (now former) step father-in-law was deployed so we agreed to wait so he could be there. After he kept being re-deployed over and over we finally decided we were just going to go to Vegas (we lived in Southern California). We hadn’t bought too much for the wedding yet, so it wouldn’t be a big loss.
On April 6, 2002 we got married and the Chapel at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, Nevada with our immediate family and closest friends present. I was 21, David had just turned 24. I was so excited to marry him that I walked straight to the alter instead of standing next to my dad while he gave me away. We had no photographer (David was the only one with photography skills that we knew and then the flash on his 35mm camera broke at some point so a lot of our pictures are dark on one side), my aunt did the flowers for free, I did my own make-up and hair, my something blue was my underpants (classy) and afterwards we all had dinner at a Japanese restaurant and everyone had to pay their own way. Oh, and there was no cake.
My dad, who was one of the people who did not like the idea of me getting married at a young age, arrived about ten minutes before he walked me down the aisle and left as soon as the wedding was over. He did not stay for dinner.
The only “traditional” parts of our wedding were my $600 dress from David’s Bridal and David’s rented tux.
I scanned all these pictures about eight years ago. I really should rescan them and do a better job at it. Especially since I am far too lazy this morning to crop and straighten them. We got married before digital photography was “the thing.” We’re totally cool.
It’s been ten years. I still love that boy something fierce and now we have three little versions of us running around. Sometimes I wish we had a traditional wedding but, really, I wouldn’t change a thing. It was perfect. Low-key. No fuss. Very “us.”
This post was inspired by Absolute Mommy’s link up (even though it wasn’t much of a What I Wore post – that’s just not my thing):
