His vows ... the rest of the wedding

After all my concern about learning my vows, I was surprised to see my partner take out a sheet of paper. Turned out he decided that morning, while he was baking the bread for the reception, that what he had planned was not good enough, and he wrote new vows. So he read them. And they were perfect.

We had written the comments completely separately, yet we both mentioned that the other person made us feel safe and loved. Not a bad thing to share.

We moved on the exchange of rings. (I had one, thank goodness, but that confusion is a whole other story. I had four at various times.)

There were so many fun and different customs you could add at this point but we had selected the Wine Ceremony. We mixed the white and red wines and sipped them while the grandsons played Better Together, a song that my husband plays frequently.

The minister declared us married and read the lovely blessing that I had found that honors earth, fire and wind - so we could grow stronger through the seasons, be warm and glowing with love in our hearts, and sail through life safely and calmly.

On to the pictures and the reception.

Since we had started late, the food was all ready and we moved inside for appetizers and drinks before settling down for dinner. After individual mango, pineapple and kiwi salads, the rest was served family style. Large platters of chicken, shrimp and beef kabobs were passed around with wild rice and garlic mashed potatoes, and green beans with almonds.

For dessert, we had chosen gourmet cupcakes in wonderful flavors like caramel apple pie, chocolate raspberyy ganache, key lime, mexican kahlua, carrot with cream cheese icing and more. We also presented my new mother-in-law with a small cake in honor of her 90th birthday that day.

The caterers kept asking me for more containers to store the extra food. We had so much left we were able to make brunch the next morning for the my family from out-of-town - yummy omelets and fruit.

Everyone stayed and enjoyed the chance to share our happy occasion.

My wedding shower

One of the most fun events around my late life wedding was initiated by the ladies with whom I play tennis. They were thrilled when I got engaged. I think they were worried about me and all my stories about the men I met on match.com. Although they loved hearing the stories on our rides to away tennis matches!

Shortly after I told them about my upcoming wedding, they asked if they could have a shower. I politely declined, explaining we had everything we needed and I was not comfortable with the idea of gifts. They then suggested a wine party one evening and I agreed that would be fun.

Imagine my chagrin when I saw the guests arriving with gift bags. A close friend told me to just wait and it would make sense. We enjoyed food and drinks and then I indeed began to open the gifts.

It turned out my friends had decided to give me unique wine glasses, each representing the person who gave it. They were very creative, from the ones that were painted brightly with clever sayings, to the ones with a variety of etchings and colors in the glass. Some were new and modern and a few were the last of cherished family collections.

Each one was a delightful surprise and I was doing well until they tried to test me on which one came from which guest! I protested (I could not have done that even when I was younger!) and made a list for future reference.

I was able to use two of the glasses that happened to feature my wedding colors for the Wine Ceremony at the wedding.

And we plan to have many parties in the future using these lovely momentos of this happy time in my life.

The ceremony ... my vows

I spent so much time working on the ceremony itself. We could anything we wanted and there are so many ideas available on the internet these days. How exciting that it was finally beginning!

The sun shone just a little. The grandsons played the opening song - Over the Rainbow, the special version by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (yes, I had to look up how to spell it).  The perfect opening.

The minister welcomed everyone and mentioned my Dad who died last year and the beloved dog we had buried last winter. We knew there we with us that day.

He talked about our parents and thanked them for helping us get where we are today, and spoke of our common spirituality. Then it was time for the vows.

I had been worrying for weeks about the vows. First, we had planned to write them together and make them match. But then my fiance said, "Why don't we just get up and talk to each other?" Well,, he is a professional performer, so I figured that sounded easy to him. It freaked me out.

But I sat down one night and wrote some paragraphs from the heart - just telling him how I felt and making some promises to him. And then I started memorizing! Just like when I have lines in a play (I am a community theatre actress), I worked on this. By the week of the wedding, I had it down! But I was still nervous.

At least I got to go first, and it came out just the way I wrote it. Not every word, but the meaning of each part. I even got a few laughs talking about how he deleted me after the first time we went out and I had to wait over a year before I saw him again. And reminding everyone that I proposed to him, because I had sworn I was never getting married again, so he was surely not going to ask me.

I made these vows:

• I promise to give you the best of myself, and ask of you no more than you can give.
• I promise to be there when you need me, and even when you don't think you do.
• I promise to take care of you, so you had better get used to it.
• I promise to share our hopes and dreams, and work together to make them come true.
• I promise to sing with you in harmony forever.
• I promise to love you, and cherish you for the rest of my life.
• I promise to be your partner in future adventures.
• I am yours, you are mine. Forever.

Deep breath. And it was his turn.