Today is my husband's and my 8th wedding anniversary! Yep, eight years ago today I married the goofiest, wackiest, sweetest, most unique person in the world. He's kind and generous, ornery and tempermental, patient and loveable, big and silly, intelligent and curious, egotistical and hard-headed, romantic and loving. He's all that and so much more, and I love him for it.

We had an interesting wedding October 2, 1999. Our minister up and left town one week before our wedding. Luckily, there was a replacement, a woman minister from another town I had never met before. She turned out to be nice, but, not what I expected. And there was a huge big scandal regarding the whole leaving town thing. Just what I needed before our wedding!! Oh, did I mention I was working at the church at the time??? That time was the final thing I needed to teach me that organized religion is just not my bag.

But, back to our wedding! Our music was prerecorded and a friend was singing. The person who was supposed to run our recording couldn't make it and another person stepped in. Did it work? Nope. The tape was playing and no one was singing and the minister finally had to step in and ask the guy to rewind and replay. Sigh.

After the wedding, we had an old antique car to drive us from the church to our reception, about 12 miles away. We were a bit worried at times it wasn't going to get us there. Can we say....backfire?? Sigh again.

I wanted ONE special song for us to dance to that night...."Beauty and the Beast." We get there and our DJ can't find the song. My niece ran home to her house, about 3 blocks away, got her CD player and a Disney CD so our first dance could be that song. The ONLY song I had specified. So, our first dance was a good 30 minutes late as we scrambled to find the song, try to find a different song, and then had Samantha save the day with her Sony. Double sigh.

But, the absolute KICKER, and I saved the best for last, was during the actual wedding ceremony. We had a unity candle. Now, since I had worked at the church, I had heard countless times from the minister never ever to pre-light the candles, as they won't light well for the actual wedding. But, as you recall, he left town on me. So, the new minister made me light the candles the night before during our rehearsal. Fine. During our ceremony, we went up to light our unity candle. Now, the main candle was in a very nice, etched with our names and date and a cute little picture, glass cylander vase. This was placed on a candle stand. And, since at rehearsal, it didn't look too stable, we secured it with some sticky goo stuff...like the kind of stuff you stick posters up with. Well, as I was saying we went up to light our candle. Mike and I each took our little tapers and went to light the main one. Only, the main candle wouldn't light. It just kept pooling up with wax. (Because we lit it the night before!!!). As our soloist was finishing up, and we just kept standing there trying to light the damn thing, Mike takes the glass cylander down and holds it, we get the freaking candle lit, and he places the cylander back on the stand. Only now, the sticky goo is no longer pressed on, holding it on the stand. We go back to the altar and a minute later........BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The cylander crashes to the floor, shattering into a bazillion pieces, a friend of mine sitting in the front pew tries to make a dive for it...misses...yells out 'SHIT!' (although I didn't hear that, and I love you for it, Nik!!!!!). The minister covers by saying, "This is NOT a sign." Oy.

So, to say the least, it was an eventful wedding. However, I guess all the little things made it all the more memorable!

Happy Anniversary, Darling. It's been 8 years, and I wish for 80 more.