Having recently attended a wedding has gotten me to think about marriage in general and weddings in particular. I’ve been the blissful bride at two of them myself. This is, of course, one more than many people. I have found it takes me more than one try on many things in life. I’m happy to say I got it right the second time.

I had just turned 24 when I gave marriage my first go. We got married at a small Catholic church in Dillon, CO, called Our Lady of Peace. It was my parents’ church. By that time I was living in Denver, and was a mostly faithful churchgoer. While I went to church more often than I didn’t, I certainly didn’t have a church that I would have called my parish. Given that, we decided to get married at my parents’ church.

Our wedding was on December 29. Thinking that the church would still be decorated for Christmas, I didn’t worry about flowers. (Frankly, I didn’t worry about a lot of things regarding my wedding. I bought my dress at a regular store rather than a bridal store, and it didn’t cost very much.) Much to my surprise, when we walked into the church the night before our wedding for the rehearsal, there wasn’t a decoration in sight. To this day, I don’t know why the pastor took down everything four days after Christmas. His name was Fr. Ed, but he might as well have been Fr. Grinch.

My second wedding was entirely different. It was still small, with maybe 50-75 guests. But it wasn’t small in my heart. We were married in the church I had attended for 10 years. It was a half-block from the house in which Court and I lived. The parish had a school that Court attended from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Every member of my family was involved in some way in our wedding. My two sisters were bridesmaids. My nieces Kate and Maggie, and Bill’s daughter Heather were my junior bridesmaids. My nephew Christopher was ringbearer. And my two little nieces Kacy and Jessie were flower girls. Bill’s sons were groomsmen. My brother Dave held the honorary position of “host” which, thankfully, didn’t really involve much hosting. My nephew B.J. was the altar server. Court walked me down the aisle.

The wedding was really a celebration of love and I was joyful every hour of that day. I have many memories of that day, but one in particular always stands out. It was about 11 o’clock in the morning, and our wedding was at 2. The women/girls had just returned from getting our hair and makeup done. I walked in the back door of our little house (which was full of happy people). Court — 12 years old at the time — came running up to me and said, “Mom, B.J. and I are hungry. What is there to eat?”

I had carefully planned every minute of that day, but I had completely forgotten that people needed to eat lunch. Those kids were hungry. We ordered Dominic’s Pizza.

Yesterday Bill and I celebrated the 29th anniversary of this wonderful day. We’ve had ups and downs, but our life together together has been rich and full of surprises and lots of love.

Happy anniversary to my amazing husband who has made every day of our life together joyful. Well, except for the day that I threw the burrito at him.