CHURCH vs. STATE

Today is our THIRD wedding anniversary. Sort of...

Three years ago today was our wedding ceremony at our church. I wore a white dress. D had on his best suit. Friends and family were in attendance. It was a candlelight ceremony. Harriet sang. Angie, Andrea and Becky also sang. Daryl pronounced us husband and wife. It was lovely; a day I don't want to forget. After the ceremony we had a party. Ron catered a wonderful meal (the menu was designed by David). We had a wonderful carrot wedding cake, and my mom made a wonderful assortment of cookies. Honestly, I didn't want to leave the party. Not only had I married the most wonderful man, but I was in a room with ALL of our friends and family - enjoying good food, listening to good music, sipping wine and champagne. It was a magical day. Nothing. Not even the rain, being locked out of the church, a mother-in-law who arrived an hour late to the ceremony could ruin my special day. It was perfect. I was married. I was in love. And I was ready for the next chapter of my life to begin.

So if all of this happened three years ago TODAY, why is today only sort of our anniversary?

It's a LONG story... D and I applied for our marriage license in early January. In DC, you have to make two trips to the city government building in order to legally marry in the District. On the first trip you apply for your license; the second is to pick up the official document. Long story short, we COMPLETELY forgot to pick up our license before the ceremony. At the rehearsal, Daryl asked for our license and we realized we didn't have it. In my defense, the days leading up to the wedding were hectic - I was SO sick, we had family from all over the world in town, there were parties to attend, friends to hang out with, work to do, etc... Fortunately we were not leaving for our honeymoon until the following Wednesday. We picked up our license first thing Monday morning.

In the eyes of God, we were married on February 4th. We thought the state would agree. Obviously it did not. We picked up our license on the 6th of February. Daryl signed it and dated our ceremony as the 4th. When we got back from our honeymoon, Daryl informed us that he received a scolding from the city government while we were away. Because our license was dated the 6th, we could not LEGALLY be married until (at the earliest) the 7th.

Basically, our first marriage didn't take.

We went on our honeymoon and in the eyes of the state we were NOT married.

So on Sunday, February 26th Daryl remarried us in his house. It was our second marriage. And this one took. The DC government filed the paperwork and we were officially husband and wife.

We have decided to celebrate the anniversary of our first marriage; although we have fond memories of our second marriage! We also like to joke about going on vacation and "living in sin" for three weeks (prior to our official state ceremony).

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Celebration: we're going to celebrate our anniversary tomorrow night by opening our second bottle of wine from the case Robert gave us as a wedding gift.

Marriage highlights: D and I agree... the highlights of our life together include buying our house and having a baby. We also love the fact that we've run two marathons together, have been hang-gliding, and learned to surf together.