I married the same man twice...sort of! - Theme Thursday

Some time ago I was going to blog about my wedding story and as it turns out Something Clever 2.0  decided to have a Theme Thursday topic about this. I’ve been with my husband for about 12 years. Of those we’ve been legally married for 8 ½ and 6 ½ in the church. My wedding story has two parts.

I’ve lived in America for over 22 years. When I was 21 I went on a summer vacation back to my country. I had no intentions on meeting anyone for long term. There were many stories of men and women marrying people in America just for the green cards. I didn’t want to be one of those. So I vowed not to fall in love. Of course my heart had other intentions and as it happened I met my future husband on the second day I arrived and we started dating on the third. Even at that time I didn’t think anything serious was going to happen; I thought it was just going to be a summer fling but this turned into a lot more. We ended up dating with me going back and forth for a couple of years. It was really hard for us. We were young and in love and wanted to spend every waking moment together. He tried to get a visitors visa a few times but was denied every time. It’s really hard convincing an American consulate that you plan to come back when you’re young and they know you’re going to America to see your girlfriend. Anyway after about 4 years of this we decided we had enough and were ready to start our life together. I applied for a fiancé visa for him and lucky he got it and he came in February 2004. On April 2, 2004 we got legally married.

I didn’t know what getting married in City Hall meant. This has to be the most unromantic way to get married. We were brought into a room with about 30 other couples and some you could just tell were “in love” & not getting married for “papers”. Every couple of minutes a couple would go into a room and come out about 5 minutes later. We thought they all filled out the paper work wrong. Surly it can’t be that the wedding ceremony lasts only 5 minutes…right? WRONG!!! The ceremony really is that quick. We couldn’t believe it. We went in there and the guy started talking so fast I don’t even remember if we even said I do all I remember is the guy said “CONGRATULATIONS YOU’RE MARRIED”. We both look at each other like WHAT THE FUCK that’s it??? It was so quick our friends that were there with us didn’t even get to take decent pictures. After that we all went out for a lunch and at night for some drinks and BAM we were husband and wife.

Now the only reason we did the whole City Hall thing was because with a fiancé visa you have to get married within 3 months or the person coming to America looses their visa and even if they get married say 6 months later they would not get their green card. We had always planned to make a wedding. We wanted our families and friends to celebrate this day with us. The original plan was to return to our country either that summer or the latest the summer of 2005 and make a big wedding with the church and reception. So why did we end up getting married in the summer of 2006 you ask, well because I got unexpectedly pregnant in the winter of 2004 and my son wasn’t born until September 2005. I was not going to travel while 7 months pregnant and no way was I wearing a wedding dress when I was HUGE!!!

As the summer of 2006 approach my husband and I really go into the whole planning. We tried to do as much as we could while in American since our wedding was going to be in Europe. I got the dress, him the suite, a little suite for our little guy, people were called and invited (no wedding invitations are done over there). As much as we tried to do everything right there are always disasters & some beyond our control.

First I had been going to the same hair dresser for years. I loved this woman and recommended her to everyone. I went to her a couple of days before I was due to leave for Europe and told her to color my hair platinum blond for MY WEDDING!!! I had been going to her for a couple of months before just to lighten my hair gradually so that the last time I colored it would be perfect. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not really girly girly but this was my wedding, I wanted to look nice. After my hair was done it turn out yellow NOT PLATINUM BLOND. I was like WHAT THE FUCK I told you I wanted platinum blond not YELLOW. Let me just rewind for a minute. Before she started to color it I asked her can you get it platinum blond if not than tell me now so that my hair is not yellow. She said of course I can. So you can understand why I was pissed as hell. I didn’t even pay her for the fucked up job she did and I never went back. Luckily I was leaving the country about a month before my wedding so I was able to get the color I wanted for A LOT CHEAPER in Europe.

Second 2 weeks before the wedding my father-in-laws sister died. She was sick and everyone was expecting her to die we were all just praying that it happened after our wedding. When she died I thought that was it for my wedding. Our traditions and customs are different than here in America. My father-in-law could have easily said no wedding since his sister died. I luckily have the best in-laws on the planet not just for this but for so many other reasons that he didn’t even think about canceling our wedding.

Third a week before our wedding the guy where we were renting the hall from gets into a car accident and dies. So now I’m thinking is someone trying to give me a hint? Should I not marry this guy? Of course it was too late. I had already married him legally 2 ½ years ago and had a child with him. I was going to marry him one way or another. Thankfully the guy had a son who willingly stepped up and did everything for us so our wedding day could be beautiful and just right.

On a warm summer day in August 2006 my husband and I got married in a church in front of all our friends and family. The reception was great. Everyone had a great time. The servers were wonderful. They made sure there was always food on the table and everyone’s glass was full. People say it was the best wedding they had been to in a long time. Even now every once in a while someone will comment on our wedding and say it was still the most fun. We had people drunk, dancing till 3 in the morning.

Even thought we definitely had some bumps in the road and there were times when I thought we shouldn’t get married I’m glad I chose him at the end. Yes we drive each other crazy and I think often of ways to eliminate him (joking…mostly) if I had to do it all over again I would still chose him.

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