2 Anniversaries

Well, John and I discussed it and have decided to share the 2 anniversaries story with you all (woohoo!) and if anyone recognizes the story, we'll deny it was us and you can't prove anything!  Those people just have a very similar life as us.  :)

Dream Wedding(s):
Most little girls have a dream wedding in their heads.  Since I was 16 I knew the kind of wedding I wanted and all I had to do was insert groom's name.  OK, there was a little more planning that went into me planning my wedding, but you get the idea.  I wanted a big garden wedding in August with flower girls and bridesmaids and groomsmen and an acoustic guitar.  Afterward, I wanted everybody to go to a hall for a huge dance party and party all night dancing and drinking and having a good time.  But, there was another vision of the perfect wedding day in my poor, little, confused and complicated head.  I wanted to stand in a church before God with only our witnesses and our pastor and pledge to commit myself to my spouse.  Sweet, romantic and sincere.  I also wanted rain on my wedding day (because it's good luck you know).   How can I have a big, beautiful garden wedding and rain?  I'm a walking contradiction (shakes head).

The Story:
I have a confession to make.  When John and I first met, he was still married (legally).  He was still married when we started dating, still married when we decided to get married ourselves and still married when we chose a wedding date.  And he was still married when that wedding date came around.  Now before you all gasp and wag your fingers at us, his divorce literally took 4 years.  That's a long time to wait to move on with your life.  Especially since she moved on when they were still together.  You know living together, having sex together, not just married by a piece of paper, but still together.

We didn't plan for our relationship to go the direction it did.  I truly believe, and so does John, that there was a bigger power involved in our relationship.  We decided to get married about the time we decided to sleep together and about the time I got pregnant.  We tried to keep our decision to get married a secret for a while, at least until his divorce was final.  There was a date set for the divorce to go through sometime in December.  I wanted an August wedding, so we picked August of the following year, picked a tentative date and still attempted to keep things a secret, at least from her.  We had to inform out of state family about our chosen date so they could plan their trip out.  The witch found out our plans to get married, not the date though and as we suspected, she held up the divorce.  To me, it's amazing an individual can hold up the whole process when it's so painfully obvious she doesnt't care about the marriage.

We held up our wedding planning for a little bit and waited to see how long she could really drag this process out.  There wasn't much for them to fight over.  He left her everything, they lost their house and were already living in separate houses, no debts, they weren't married long enough for her to qualify for alimony, so there was just the $3,000 of his retirement plan of which she only qualified for half of half.  The lawyers both agreed it'd be done by April.  Nope.  Court dates kept being postponed and continuations filed.  It was a circus and honestly the biggest joke I've ever seen.  She actually told people she was holding things off until our wedding date (which she never really figured out) hoping I would leave when I didn't get my wedding.  That's when we decided to go along with the preplanned wedding date and made a back up plan in case we couldn't get legally married on that day.  We had a family friend lead the ceremony and chose vows the were more declarations of our love rather than a pronouncement of a married couple.  And we had my big garden wedding.  It was beautiful and we partied all night, I don't think there was a minute I wasn't on the dance floor and we had a good time.  We put in our programs that it wasn't a legal ceremony but rather a celebration of 2 people committed to each other.

The divorce was quickly finalized after that and we had our second wedding the following May.  In our church with our 2 best friends and our pastor who'd counseled us along the way.  I bought a white cocktail dress to wear and we had a very intimate ceremony and I cried.  John surprised me with a second wedding band to symbolize this equally important day.  And it rained!  :)

So there you have it folks.  I have 2 anniversaries, I got 2 wedding bands, wore 2 wedding dresses and got both my dream weddings all because of someone who was jealous and vindictive.  In her attempt to ruin my perfect day, she actually helped to make it more perfect than I could have imagined.  :)