Marriage odds

Eight years ago, I stood at the altar of St John the Baptist Catholic Church and professed my love and dedication to the man who taught me what love was. It was a blessed day filled with joy and laughter and one that I will always remember with happiness.

Paul and I used to reflect on that day and laugh about how the Priest “gave us odds” for our marriage. As Father Reilly stood there talking about the bonds of marriage and how it was such a blessing to join together a young couple in Holy Matrimony, he gave his (presumably standard) line about the “next 50 years”.

Then he paused, looked at us, shrugged his shoulders, and said “well, 25 years at least”.

Now, Paul and I knew that this was a comment made because we were so much older than the typical couple getting married in a fairly conservative Catholic Church*, but we always joked that even the Priest didn’t think we’d make it 50 years.

And every year on our wedding anniversary, we would count down those 25 years – and we would joke that once they were up, we were free agents again. Sadly, Paul still owed me more than 21 years when he died. I don’t know that I will ever forgive him for leaving early.

But I digress …

Paul created a couple of short photo videos to share with our family and friends who were unable to attend our wedding, so I thought that I’d share them with you here again. Just in case you want to roll your eyes over how terribly sappy and in love we were.

The “formal” shots
YouTube did not allow me to upload this video with the music Paul had it set to, so the track on the embedded video isn’t as fun. Click here to load the original version.

The “candid” shots
This one is loaded with the original music. So no other link is needed!

*This “being old” thing actually worked in our favour because Father Reilly let us skip the whole “marriage classes” thing that most couples need to go through before being married in the Church. He figured that if we waited as long as we did to get married, we probably knew what we were doing.