Nine Years........

Done Deal - toasting

Caroline & Susan

Tomorrow is our 9^th wedding anniversary.  It seems crazy that much time has gone by, 3285 days to be exact.  I spent so much of my life NOT married and being single was a huge part of my identity so to realize almost a decade has passed with a different experience, seems surreal.

I still inadvertently write Kathy Henderson on occasion.  My name change was easier to adapt to than my initials change.  For some reason that was really hard....”KH” was almost like my first name and I still have a hard time with “KC”.   It just doesn’t feel like me.

We got married in Tombstone, Arizona.  We were driving up to Alaska from Texas and stopped in Arizona to visit my friend Caroline.  We had previously booked a room at a bed and breakfast in Tombstone that had a chapel and a minister/proprietor.  For a very reasonable fee you could book the honeymoon suite, the chapel and the minister.  She also provided a small cake and a bottle of champagne.  It was the perfect wedding!! My friend Susan and her dad also came over from Yuma so I had two girlfriends with me.  The chapel was right next to the OK Corral and the Tombstone Museum which, if you know my Texas born, bred and indoctrinated husband, you’d know that was a perfect coincidence.  He has watched that movie ‘Tombstone’ at least 150 times.  Since I’ve known him.  He always says he was born in the wrong era.  (But then I remind him they had no movies and TV back then.  Or Ipads.   He concedes.)



Newly Married



There was a store in town that rented authentic old western gear so that’s where we got our wedding clothes.  A trip to Bisbee procured our license.  There were no flower shops around so Caroline pulled a primrose out of the dirt and wrapped paper towel around it and that was my wedding bouquet! Susan had a video camera and Caroline invited another couple to come take pictures during the ceremony.  It has to be one of the least expensive weddings ever.

The wedding party

To this day I still think of it as the perfect wedding.  It was such a great day, so fun and so special.  Having two good friends at my side was all I needed.  I watch all these crazy wedding shows on TV and cannot believe the extravagance and expense some people go through for a wedding.  I think of a friend whose mom is still paying for their extravagant wedding photo packages five years later.  The couple in question are barely civil to each other; the concepts of respect and affection long forgotten, yet wedding photos matter?  How crazy is that.  Then I think of how long it has been since I even got my wedding album out.  It really makes me realize how fleeting and superficial the actual ceremony is.  No matter how fancy it is, it doesn’t take long before you are entrenched in the grind of daily living and the euphoria of the wedding day soon forgotten.  Memories fade no matter how much they cost you.

Chris and I definitely got off to a rocky start.  He drives me crazy in a 100 different ways but he also makes me laugh every day.  Humor is a definitely a sanity/marriage saver.    We’ve scaled some mountains in our marriage....seen some summits and a few valleys but somehow the old coot has grown on me.  So sweetheart, if you’re reading........I love you!  And here’s to #10. 

The Bachelorette Party, Susan & Caroline