Thinking Back on Our Wedding Day

On a forum that I participate in, we’ve been discussing the in’s and out’s of getting married and weddings, especially as they relate to members of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints. For those non-LDS readers, you’ll notice that “Mormon’s” do weddings differently than other churches. This is because we place great emphasis on getting married and getting sealed in the Temple. We believe that marriage is more than just for time in this life, it is for time and all eternity, and that the power of that eternal bond can only be given inside of the walls of the Temple.

The Temple is a sacred place, and it’s a place that only members that have a temple recommend can go to. If you have family or friends that do not have a temple recommend (i.e. anyone not a member of the church, or member’s who for some reason don’t have one), you cannot see the actual sealing ceremony). Because of this, there are many traditions and approaches to LDS weddings and wedding receptions. As for Christina and I, we didn’t have the first time experience of a wedding and sealing. We had a traditional American style wedding at Peace Lutheran Church in San Bruno (just up the street from where we currently live). It was a very special day for us that we will remember for the rest of our lives, and we enjoyed every single minute of it.

We had some fun with our wedding and we have some fun memories of that day:

* the groomsmen had more hair and longer hair than the bridesmaids did

* the bride wore her hair down and the groom wore his up in a French braid (it was the only way I could honor my mother's request that I look "presentable and respectable" in our pictures. I complied, from the front (LOL!)).

* the fact that during the entire ceremony, Christina hopped up and down on the balls of her feet; whether she was nervous or happy, we don't quite remember, but she did it almost throughout the entire ceremony :) ).

* the Pastor that married us (Pastor Al) was an absolutely *great* guy, and I loved the fact that he met with us about monthly from the time we announced we were getting married until we actually did.

* Seeing the smiles on people’s faces when our musical number was played (“Bella Notte”… yep, the same one from ‘Lady and the Tramp’… long story as to why it was picked, but suffice it to say that Christina and I have had images and icons from Lady and the Tramp in our relationship as long as we’ve known each other, and it’s a bit of a metaphor for the two of us together).

* the mixture of family, friends, and rock scene people was a riot (Old-world German families mixed with long haired glam boys and girls, especially Christina's friend who wore a female equivalent of a groomsman's tux and a stratospheric hairdo (LOL!))

* the toast my wife made saying how very happy she was to finally be rid of her unpronounceable Austrian last name (Puchreiter… poor girl, she didn't realize she was trading it in for a Danish one (Larsen) that would almost *never* be spelled correctly (haha!!) ).

* we did it almost all ourselves, with a little input from both mom's, and little to no input from either of the dads (and they liked it just fine that way (grin!) ).

* we couldn't tell you what we actually had to eat, but the cake was terrific (made by my cousin, Patty) and we got a few chuckles and smiles over our cake top (yes, Lady and the Tramp were on our wedding cake; again, you have to really have a history with Christina and me to understand why ;) ).


Again, it’s not an anniversary and no one we know is getting married any time soon, but it’s always fun to be reminded of that day nearly sixteen years ago when we announce to the world that “two became one”, and I’m very happy to still be as excited about that occasion as I was back when it was happening. What was also nice was that, when our family was sealed in the Oakland Temple in 2002, our Sealing Ordinance certificate listed both of our dates; our marriage date of December 5th, 1992, and our sealing date of March 9th, 2002. I like to tell our kids that we have two anniversaries... but we encourage them to strive to have just one (LOL!).