Marriage Meme

I got this from Lori and well, you know me........ I can't resist.

1. Where/How did you meet? We were both taking country and western dance lessons and we were both partner-less. I had just come out of a really bad engagement break-up, Paul was single and Red decided that we needed to dance together.

2. How long have you known each other? 14 years 6 months

3. How long after you met did you start dating? We had dance lessons on Tuesday and we went out on our first date that next Saturday.

4. How long did you date before you were engaged? One month. Not one to waste a lot of time, my man.

5. How long was your engagement? 2 months exactly. He asked me to marry him on October 30 and we were married January 1st.

6. How long have you been married? 14 years, 3 months.

7. What is your anniversary? New Year's Day. I did that so that he'd never forget the date, plus in my young, naive mind I thought we'd always be partying on our anniversary. Little did I know that a few years would pass and fuddy-duddy-ness would set in and "I hate fighting the crowds of drunks" would be the answer when I would ask about anniversary date plans.

8. How many people came to your wedding reception? Not many. We sent out about 100 invitations to the wedding, but only about 35 showed up. The roads were slicker'n greased owl shit.

9. What kind of cake did you serve? Pretty typical wedding cake - white with white icing.

(We were way into the cowboy stuff back then. The napkins had a picture of a little cowgirl kissing a cowboy with a lasso around his neck. Precious. Just precious. I make fun of people who have shit like that at their weddings now.)

10. Where was your wedding? Northwest Baptist Church in Miami.

(The marquee said "Congratulations Paul and Kristin")

11. What did you serve for your meal? We didn't have a rehearsal dinner because it was hard enough to get everyone to just show up for the rehearsal on New Year's Eve and we didn't have a dinner after the wedding because, well, we were poor.

12. How many people were in your bridal party? Tater was my maid of honor and Paul's oldest brother was his best man.

(I wish this picture were clearer. Tater had HUGE hair. HUGE, I tell ya! Big and poufy with a blonde streak in the front, like Elvira or something.)

13. Are you still friends with them all? We're related to them. Friends by association and all that.

14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony? Nope. We were both nervous, but neither of us cried.

15. Most special moment of your wedding day? Learning that Paul hadn't gone back to bed after he brought me to Mom's at 4am. Instead he had stayed up memorizing our vows so that he wouldn't mess them up, even though I had told him that he just had to repeat after the preacher. He was so sweet about that.

16. Any funny moments? As Paul and I were saying our vows, I looked up at him and discovered a bead of sweat running down his nose. Holding back a giggle, I watched as it stopped at the end of his nose and just hung there. By that time he realized it was there, too, but he was holding my hands and didn't want to let go to wipe it away. It wasn't until the prayer that he let go long enough to take care of it. At that point the shaking because of nervousness gave way to shaking because we were trying not to laugh.

17. Any big disasters? An ice storm rolled in that afternoon. We were supposed to head to the church around 5 and I was getting ready at 3 when Tater came in and said, "It's raining!" About 30 minutes later she busted in and said, "It's icing!" And that's when Mom started doing her usual take charge/freak out thing and we went to the church early. That's why I painted my nails in my wedding dress. Nearly gave my mother a heart attack over that, too. When the wedding was over, Paul's uncles and my cousins lined up from the church to the truck to help me so I wouldn't break a leg on my wedding night. When I threw the bouquet, I pretty much just threw it to my best friend at the time because diving for it would've been dangerous.

18. Where did you go on your honeymoon? We were supposed to go to Springfield, MO, that night, but it was so slippery we literally slid as far as the Super 8 in Miami and stayed there. I don't think we could've even made it home to Wyandotte.

19. How long were you gone? Overnight. We had a new blue heeler pup that Mom was pupsitting and instead of burdening her with the ornery little shit any longer we decided to just pick him up and go home.

20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? We wouldn't have so much corny, hokey wedding stuff, like that cake topper and the napkins. And we'd definitely have a dance. (Of course, not at the Baptist church. Because then we'd all go to Hell.) I'd also have had our song played, instead of just going along with the church's suggestion that no secular music be played. Dangit, every cowboy wedding needs a George Strait song! We really needed Strait. Of course, today there is no way in hell I would have a cowboy wedding. Definitely black flowers, though. Love black flowers.

21. What side of the bed do you sleep on? I'm on the left because that's the furthest side from the door. He's insistent that if someone breaks in, they get him first. Yeah. Because then the murderer is nice and warmed up by the time he gets to me.

22. What size is your bed? Queen. Oh how I wish it was a King. We are not snugglers. We do not like to touch when we sleep. In fact, when we finally got to take our honeymoon three months after the wedding, we were both so excited about the King bed in the suite that we were delirious. We lined pillows up down the middle, dividing the bed in half. We slept awesome that night.

23. Greatest strengths as a couple? We can paddle and navigate a canoe like a couple of professionals with no fighting. We can't paint a room without WWIII breaking out, but by golly, we can paddle a canoe. And we can also both cuss really well. (Oh, I was supposed to answer that seriously? My bad.)

24. Greatest challenge as a couple? Deciding how to spend our income tax return. We always fight at tax time. (Oh, again with the serious answer? Geez. I suck.)

25. Who literally pays the bills? Paul doesn't have a clue when it comes to the bills. When I was on bedrest trying not to go back into premature labor with Kady, my mom had to come out and pay the bills for us. She'd write 'em out and I'd sign the checks, propping the checkbook on my gigantic belly. He sat in the recliner and looked dumbfounded that she knew how to do all that when she didn't even live here! Amazing what women can do when they put their minds to it.

26. What is your song? There are two songs that make me instantly go back to when we were young and all mushy, gushy in love and stuff: "I Cross My Heart" by Geoge Straight and "Shameless" by Garth. Paul sang "Shameless" rather drunkenly to me one night on a date. It was so sweet. "I Cross My Heart" is from the movie Pure Country where the world learned that George Straight is really pretty much only good at singing and looking pretty, not acting. Paul took me the theater to see it several times. We really wanted that song played at our wedding.

27. What did you dance your first dance to? Are you kidding?!? *gasp* We were Baptists!

28. Describe your wedding dress. It's just easier to show you a picture. When it comes to stuff like that, I'm just going to say, "It was white. And long. And I had to wear fake boobies because I was so flat-chested."

29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding? Black and white flowers of some kind. It was winter so I couldn't have the daisies I wanted because I worked at a bridal shop and the gal told me she simply refused to make my bouquet out of daisies for a New Year's Day wedding. So they were black and white roses and white lily looking things. Heck, I have no idea. I just told her my colors and she took care of it.

30. Are your wedding bands engraved? What do they say? Nope. Paul's on his third replacement band. He was so dang skinny back then! He's outgrown it a few times. And there was that one time he nearly lost his ring and finger in a car when he worked at Wal*Mart. We were so poor back then we could barely afford the rings, much less actual words on them.