ALT-1 Personal Experiences of Eloping
We'd known each other for a little over two years, but it seemed we'd been best friends forever. We'd been living together for about 16 months. Between us we had four ex-spouses, six children (two living with us), a stepchild, and a teenage friend of my kids that had recently moved into the condo with us. We'd bought a boat together and were working side-by-side operating a roller skating rink. We were skating partners and spent most of our waking hours within shouting distance of each other. My children had been introducing him as their step-dad for months. Our parents kept dropping hints and people that we met immediately knew we were a couple. We loved each other and were happy together, but a wedding? You've got to be kidding?
I was actually the one holding things up. He had broached the idea of getting married about four months after we moved in together. I loved him and the kids seemed to like the idea, so I agreed even though I was pretty happy with things the way they were. We were scheduled to skate at a competition the next month in Las Vegas and decided to do the "Vegas wedding-thing" while we were there. We wouldn't invite anyone - we'd just elope. The ceremony would be just the two of us - quick & easy.
Sounded good - I could do this, except that a couple of days before the trip, things started going terribly wrong. Our truck broke down and a business deal I had been working on fell apart. The distractions made it impossible for me to remember the steps to the dance we were supposed to perform at the competition and our coach threw a fit and stomped out of our final lesson. Stress, combined with an approaching cold front and lack of sleep had left me feeling sick and exhausted. The day we were to leave, the school called. My teenager had been skipping school again - would it be possible for me to come in and talk to the councilor? Any time today would be fine... The weather was bad and the the plane was two hours late leaving. To my pragmatic significant-other; minor annoyances and things to be solved or worked around. To me; big-time problems and bad omens. As the plane taxied down the runway for takeoff, we held hands. I shook my head. "I can't get married - everything's just gotten too weird & horrible..." He wasn't happy, but agreed we'd wait and talk about it later. To him, later meant after we'd skated, but before we left Vegas. To me, later meant MUCH later.
I have to admit, the idea of getting married to someone I considered my best friend was terrifying. Especially since we were working together as well. What if getting married changed things and the relationship no longer worked? This time I wouldn't be losing just a spouse. Instead I would be left with no lover, no best friend, no soul-mate, no skate partner, no business partner... Besides, as the old saying goes "If it ain't broke - don't fix it." .
Every time the subject came up, I managed to find a way of putting it off. If there was an excuse, I used it. I was tired, I was sick, the kids were sick. If we were going to have a real wedding, I needed a dress. Oh - and we'd need to have a ring. "We can't talk about getting married, I don't even have an engagement ring, yet!" So we looked for a ring. I figured it would take several months. Not so. We looked at hundreds of rings. I didn't want another diamond, he didn't like rubies and opals are bad luck for brides, or so we were told. Someone suggested my birthstone - great idea, but that's a diamond. We decided on his birthstone and I began looking for the perfect sapphire. After shopping with me for a couple of weeks, he sat me down and asked me to describe what I wanted the ring to look like. Then my best friend smiled, sat me in the car and drove to a trendy, exclusive resale shop a few blocks away. He looked at me and shook his head, "Honey, the setting you're describing hasn't been made in about forty or fifty years, but they might have one here." They didn't that day, but they did when we checked again the next month. It couldn't have fit better if it had been made for me. Seeing the look on his face as he slid the ring onto my finger I realized that by trying so hard not to fix what wasn't broke, I might be, in fact, breaking it.
The annual competition in Vegas was approaching again and we decided, once again, to "elope" while we were there. But this time, we really WOULD elope - we weren't going to say anything to anyone, including my children. Despite their apparent approval, I didn't want to give them reasons to "act out" just before our departure. What I didn't know is that their soon- to-be stepfather changed his mind and had a talk with them. He told them what we were planning and also told them that under "penalty of death & dismemberment" they were not to do anything to cause me to falter again. They promised they wouldn't and were good to their word. The flight was good and the competition went well. We even won a little money at the casino and went to a couple of shows.
We still hadn't gotten my fiance a ring. We'd been told (when we were talking about doing this the year before) that Las Vegas was the place to get great deals on jewelry, if you don't mind going to pawn shops. At first, I said I couldn't get his wedding ring at a place like that, but he just smiled and said "Used groom - used ring...what's the big deal?" So, just off The Strip, we wandered into a pawn shop and told them we needed to look at some rings -"Men's please, with a dark sapphire." They didn't have one. A couple of doors down, the same story - a couple with sapphires of pale blue and even one with a rare yellow sapphire, but no dark blue. The third store had one with a stone that exactly matched the shade of the one we'd gotten for me, set in a ring that fit him perfectly. I had no excuses left - it was time to get a license and look for a chapel.
Getting the license was pretty painless. We got the information on some of the local drive-through wedding chapels and looked at a couple before finding the one we liked that would work for "The Plan". The plan was to get up early the next morning, put our outdoor skates on, skate over to the chapel from the hotel and have our wedding on skates at the drive-through window. Of course, everything up until this point had gone way too smooth. After enjoying both our last night of "freedom" (together, by the way) and our final night in Vegas, we forgot to ask for a wake-up call. When we finally rolled over the next morning and looked at the clock, we had less than two hours to get packed, check out of the hotel, get married, return the car to the rental agency and check in for our flight home. We did get married at the drive-through chapel and we did make it to the airport in time for our flight home. Just barely.
