It’s 3:17am and I’m sitting here while my either a.) sick or b.) teething child is watching Baby Noah, waiting for the medicine to kick in. I haven’t slept a wink. No, I take that back. I slept a wink-and-a-half just after Michael and I lay in bed, talking about how we have come to be where we are today. Today is our 12th Anniversary. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday and sometimes it feels like we’ve been together forever.
The baby finally went to sleep but not before throwing up a bottle, taking a shower with me, and screaming to kingdom come. I think I may have gotten about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Three-and-a-half-and-a-wink-and-a-half, actually. I’m good to go-
Naturally, I’m going to make today’s S.O.S. about our wedding day.
It was on my 21st birthday that my dad told us that he really didn’t like us living together. We asked him what he wanted for us to do and he replied, “Let’s have a wedding!”
Michael had already proposed to me the year before, right after he came from Louisiana, but my parents were adamant about me finishing school. I really could have cared less at that point, I was already way over school and all it had to offer. Their unwillingness to recognize our engagement was a big factor in my moving out, but that’s totally another story.
We were on the back porch, at my parents’ house, and my dad had just told us that we should get married and we wholeheartedly agreed. In the coming months, my mother and I would pull together the wedding. We also decided right then to have the reception at our church hall. Michael and I were hoping for around three hundred people but when you’re Macedonian there’s no stopping the list, it just goes on and on.
Planning was fairly stressful, yet fun. We were also given a very big bridal shower. Rumors circulated that I was pregnant and that’s why we were doing things so quickly, which I thought was kind of funny. A young couple was thought pregnant when all they wanted was to get married and start living their lives-together-as wife and husband. It wasn’t pregnancy so much as my father’s dislike for us {{gasp}} “living in sin“.
September 30th, 1995
It was the most beautiful fall day. It wasn’t cold and the sun shone ever so brightly. The sky was blue, so very blue, and the clouds were those white, fluffy clouds. It was perfect. I had spent the night before sleeping in my childhood bed, paying respect to tradition, although I don’t remember sleeping. I remember my brain speeding through thousands of thoughts, wondering how the day would go. Finally, slumber fell upon me and I was able to get some rest. I woke up with butterflies, knowing that on this day I would become Michael’s wife. Looking back now, I was so innocent and naive. But, I knew one thing and it was that we had a strong bond between us and that we were blessed to have found each other.
There were mishaps, of course. There’s not a wedding that’s not complete without them. Ours included:
- The Best Man (my 2nd cousin Mike) being so late to come “buy” me (old Macedonian tradition where the best man comes to the bride’s house and gives her mother money/gold so that he can take her to the groom) that my mother, the flower girl, and I took off for the church thinking that they had forgotten about us.
- Waiting outside the church, on the side, and Michael with our Kum and Kuma (God Parents; another Macedonian tradition which consists of picking God Parents for the wedding and having them stand up at the alter with us) drove around. I ducked behind the Lincoln Towncar so quickly and fiercely that I’m surprised that my dress didn’t get dirty. I balled like a baby that was just looked at the wrong way by Bill Maher. Our priest’s wife said, “Mishelle, snap out of it. It’s a superstition and it doesn’t mean anything. Popce (Father) and I walked out of the same house together, and look at us!” She was right.
- Kum and Kuma held Michael facing the alter, so that when I walked down he wasn’t looking at me. He only saw me when I came beside him. The look he gave me, I will never forget, and then he whispered, “You look gorgeous!” That look totally negated the aggrevation I felt when they kept him facing the alter, as I walked down the aisle.
- The way I bawled during our vows. I guess people cry during their vows but I felt like a squeaky mouse, muttering, and blubbering the words.
- After the ceremony we took off to Green Lake for pictures. Luckily we had remembered that we ‘rocked the gazebo’ a couple weeks earlier and stupidly wrote with a Sharpie “Michael and Mishelle FUCKED here!” and we went back a few nights prior to scratch it out. After all, how many M i s h elles do you know?
I’m sure there were more mishaps but I’ve blocked them out. Regardless, the ceremony was beautiful. It was steeped in Orthodox traditionalisms and exactly what we had hoped for. Then, while at Green Lake, the most beautiful thing happened. There was the brightest, most defined, sweetest rainbow overhead. Popce was there with us and told us that it was the clearest sign, to him, from God, that we were blessed in our marriage. I think about that rainbow to this very day.
The reception was fun. as. all. get. out. Everyone was so happy and for years I would hear about how our party was the best ever. The food was good, the dancing was awesome, and the only thing that I recall that went wrong was one of my bridesmaid’s sister’s boyfriends got so drunk that my dad threw him out. I’m pretty sure that he was underage, too. Another thing was that there was so much alcohol going out that the bartenders pulled out some disposable cups (I think they said “Sbarro” on them). Really classy, eh? It really didn’t matter, though.
The only thing that mattered was that we were happy, in love, and our day was perfect. I’m positive that our ceremony and reception were a direct reflection of our happiness and love. I know it’s a bit mushy to say but it was the stage setting for the years to come. Mishaps would occur, things would go wrong, but ultimately life would go on and our love would continue to grow and become stronger over the years.
Twelve years later and it’s easy to say that we’ve come a long way, because we have. I have a direct image of us, sitting on a porch, rocking on chairs, talking about our wedding day, in our old age. Thinking how it’s been 50 years but seems like just yesterday, too. That’s one of my dreams! To live into old age, beside Michael, rocking life and a l w a y s finding that rainbow in the sky.
(click thumbnail)
Soap Opera Sunday is the brainchild of Twas Brillig and Walking Katetastrophe
Please visit either of their blogs for more S.O.S. players!
