The Engagement to Wedding to 12 Passenger Van

I forgot to add this comment of all comments..... The day of RM's birthday, I reminded the 4 year old to say "Happy Birthday!"...

"It's his birthday today?"

"Yes!"

"How old is he?"

"54."

"Wow!  He's almost dead!"

We've been saying that all week now, of course.  "We should really do this or that 'cause you're almost dead anyway......".   Hilarious.  54, nearly dead.  Sorry Grammy and Gramps, I couldn't bear to tell him how old you were!

Ok, the final chapter in my "Relationship Birth Story".  This has been good for me to write, not because it has much to do with debt-reduction, but for the original reason I started to write in the first place, for my girls, my boys, for them to have a written record while I still have the recall!

I tease RM all the time because his proposal was just so matter-of-fact.  I really didn't know him super well at that point.  I know now that it fits his personality perfectly.  He took me to a French restaurant in Toronto and probably spent a pretty penny doing so.  I had a sense this was the night as rumour had it he had already met my dad and asked for my hand in marriage.  By this point, I'm pretty sure Dad was quite convinced this was the guy!

We had a lovely meal and then I noticed he bent down to pick something up as he gently banged my leg in the process!  This is it, I thought!  He said a few words and then instead of asking, he told me, "I want you to be my wife."  Again, totally fits his personality, he was stating his purpose and pretty much expected me to go along with it!  No time to discuss, just need you to agree.  I think I did babble a few things because it wasn't really a question!  How do you say yes to a statement?  But somehow it was clear that I agreed with the statement as suddenly there was a ring on my finger, a very beautiful ring.  I was a little taken aback at first as he had asked what I wanted in a ring if we were ever to get engaged and I had told him exactly what I wanted, but he didn't get it!  He had gone and done all sorts of research on diamonds.  He went to a jeweller in Toronto to get a ring made and had described what I had said.  She had talked him out of it saying it was not as nice a ring, the one I had described, a little bit cheaper, more anniversary band-ish, not engagement.  She said he must go with a solitaire, it was way more expensive but meant more, in her mind.  He decided to go with what she suggested.  I think in the end I'm glad he listened to her.  We ended up going to an antique store for my wedding band and had his band made to match.

So I did go back to Colombia engaged.  I could hardly believe it!  None of the staff at the school could believe it either as I had only known RM for such a short time!  They ended up getting very excited about it and threw a shower for me Colombian style - so fun.  I was basically teaching the wealthy of the wealthy in an American school and so any event they had made the papers.  The bridal shower ended up being in their "Sociales" section of the local paper, so I had my 5 minutes of Colombian fame.  They gave me a set of dishes made in Colombia and things like that, very special.

We had booked the hall before I left and knew we were getting married Sept. 1, 1995.  Now we had everything left to organize long distance.  I had already gotten in the habit of having clothes made in Colombia by what they called a "modista".  That was something everyone did down there as there weren't malls to shop in.  I already had a modista that I liked to use and I approached her with only a picture of the wedding dress I wanted her to make and she said she could make it!  I could hardly believe it.  She also said she could make my mom's dress and all the bridesmaid's dresses with just their measurements.  So I had all the women send me their measurements (now email was up and running for pretty much everyone which made a big difference) and that little lady sewed her fingers off.  Each dress turned out beautifully including mine and everyone was very pleased.  I still can hardly believe I travelled back with all of them and that they fit as not one of the women had had a single fitting.

RM was working on the invitation ideas and we settled on a print of a famous wedding painting for the outside of the invitation.  He did a lot of running around on my behalf as I wouldn't be in town until June and we were getting married less than 3 months later.

Once I was back in town we were able to work together on most things.  He was one of those highly involved husbands-to-be.  He had a great sense of what needed to be done. 

The day was beautiful and really had no hitches whatsoever.  We had pictures taken on the boat, of course, and those were my favourite.  It didn't take long before the boat was gone and the sports car, to be replaced by mini-van after mini-van and then ultimately a 12 passenger van!  But it was fun for the first year.  And guess what, now the sports cars are back!  Broken and waiting to be sold, but we've come full circle with them!

I took a job as a teacher in a private school which of course started the first day after Labour Day.  That meant no time for a honeymoon of any extended time.  We compromised and went to Quebec City (by plane) which made us feel like we went to Europe for just a few days.  Then I taught for the week.  The following weekend we went to Stratford for two nights, another favourite place of our's.  So we broke our honeymoon up into two parts which kind of made it feel like we had an extra one!  This September when we go away to North Carolina, it'll be the more extended honeymoon we never had and we are looking forward to it!  Every single anniversary after that, and I don't think we've missed even one, we've gone away for a night to celebrate and that's been one of the best things we've ever done in our marriage.  I look forward to it every single year.

Now, we are at the 20 year mark - everything in those verses has become real for me.  I did marry a tree!  He has always been strong with deep roots.  He was 33 when we got engaged (I like the fact he was the same age as Jesus!).  He's 8 1/2 years older than me and that brought a maturity to him that I've always appreciated.   Life is swarming around us, not just in children and animals, but actual vegetation!  I never would have pictured us out here on a farm.  We started off in a condo for our first year in downtown Mississauga.  His mom always says to me, "What happened to you?"  But I'm happier out here than in the condo for sure.

Writing our story makes me realize our children will have a story, too, and knowing how my parents prayed for me and how that impacted our story makes me pray even more knowing I can have an impact on my children's future marriages.

Is there any tie-in to debt-reduction in this story?  Not exactly.  We look back on those early days and see we had a sense of budget to some degree even when we were dating and planning our wedding, but we weren't debt-adverse at all.  That came over time. 

Ok, that concludes the love story section of the blog!  Back to regular programming after this!