We Made It Another Year

I know, bad picture. It's a photo of a picture. We weren't digital yet when that was taken. However, hey, sometimes procrastination pays off, because now I can do the wedding meme everybody else did last month.

1. Where/How did you meet?
Oh, if only we had any idea how much of this story we'd have to modify when we told the kids. *sigh* But, you're not the kids, so I can tell you. We met in a little cowboy bar in a border town. Zorak was in town on work, and had taken his cousin out for a drink. I was... well, I pretty much lived there, so I was there with friends and guys from work. He sat there at the table next to us, in his Dockers and dress shoes and button-up shirt, looking so handsome. I kept thinking how absolutely adorable he was, and that he's got to have a lot of hutzpah to come into a place like this in those clothes. He never looked my way, and then he and his cousin left.

He was back in an hour. (I found out later that he'd dropped his cousin off and said he was "going back to ask that blonde to dance". I guess he had looked my way.) Walked right up to me and asked me to dance. I was hesitant, because, really, it didn't seem as if he could dance... in a country bar... in those shoes... but I said yes, and WOW OH WOW, could he dance! I knew I had to get to know him better when I asked him where he'd learned to dance like that and he laughed and said, "I grew up on a sheep ranch." He was interesting from the first moment we spoke (and he's never stopped being interesting to me, not once).

2. How long have you known each other?
11 1/2 years

3. How long after you met did you start dating?
We never discussed it. We simply began spending all our spare time together and one day just realized this is it.

4. How long did you date before you were engaged?
You know, this meme really highlights how poorly organized we are. Again, not really something we spent a lot of time discussing. We knew we'd marry. Everybody else knew we'd marry. It was just a matter of getting it all done.

5. How long was your engagement?
I dunno. (See #4)

6. How long have you been married?
Nine years. But it's supposed to be ten. We had planned for a Cinco de Mayo wedding in 1997, and had almost everything set to do it then. But the morning of the Cinco de Mayo festival, we realized we'd forgotten two important things: invitations, and a wedding license.

So we rescheduled for September 1997. But we were in the Gila hunting that week, so we forgot to get married then, too.

And then, well, we had to get married sometime, right? So we finally did.


7. What is your anniversary?
April 11, 1998

And for those who've followed the weirdness, no, the pastor never did file the license. So, according to the state in which we were married, we are not married. But we have the signed and witnessed certificate, and warm bodies to testify on our behalf. No worries. We're good.

8. How many people came to your wedding reception?
Um, I don't know. 50-75, I think.

9. What kind of cake did you serve?
Oh, my mother-in-law made our cake. It was sooooo pretty. Three-tiered with ivy designs, and... I'll have to find a picture. She makes amazing cakes.

10. Where was your wedding?
The little Nazarene church in town.

11. What did you serve for your meal?
Um... barbacoa? Beans, rice. I don't remember. I do remember that the reception was at a brewery with frou-frou management who thought we all wanted to be Santa Fe Cool, and I had a hard time getting across to them that we did NOT want the black beans, corn and pimento dish. We just wanted pintos. With nothing sparkly in them. Just. Pintos.

12. How many people were in your wedding party? 8.

13. Are you still friends with them all?
Oh, yes. You can't run from family.

14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony?
I don't think so. It was hard to tell through all the sweat (it was HOT in that church, and no a/c).

15. Most special moment of your wedding day?
Dancing our first dance together as husband and wife.

16. Any funny moments?
Oh... yes. The one that sticks out the most is that the pastor called me Lindsay. Zorak's family thought perhaps Dy was just a middle name or something. My family thought the pastor had been drinkin' and that's why we should've gone with a good Baptist preacher instead. Zorak and I just needed to confirm that he was, in fact, married to ME, no matter what name I was called in the service.

17. Any big disasters?
Nah. We're married, and we didn't set anything on fire at the reception. Life. Is. Good.

18. Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We didn't have a honeymoon. We stayed at a hotel there in town and headed back to work on Monday.

19. How long were you gone?
:-)

20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change?
Ay-yi-yi-yi! We'd have pulled it together enough to get married when we meant to!

21. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
In theory, the right. In reality, in whatever wee little space I can squish out for myself among the bodies.

22. What size is your bed?
Queen

23. Greatest strength as a couple?
We're in it for the long haul. When that's a given for both parties, you can pretty much make it through, or accomplish, anything.

24. Greatest challenge as a couple?
Well, it's a good thing we're in it for the long haul, because as bad as we are with procrastinating and organization, it's gonna take us a while to get it all hauled.

25. Who literally pays the bills?
He earns the money. I dole it out to the people who follow us around asking for it.

26. What is your song?
I don't know. The super-awesome band we had at our wedding learned to play "Fraulein" for us. But when I hear, "My Own Heart's Delight", by Ian Tyson, I *always* think of us. I'll ask Zorak if he thinks we have a song.

27. What did you dance your first dance to?
Fraulein, which is why the band learned it.

8. Describe your wedding dress:
Ivory, with... eh, you can see it for yourself in the picture-of-a-picture up above. I'm bad at that.

29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding?
I have no idea. My sister did the flowers. I tried to help pick some out, but after about the fourth time I picked something that evidently would have been disgusting, she handed me the basket and told me not to help anymore. LOL.

30. Are your wedding bands engraved?
No.

31. How old were you when you got married?
I was 24. Zorak was 29.