A tale of two weddings

There’s something about my past people are often surprised to find out.
I was married twice in the same year, to the same man — my husband, Troy.
The first was a slapdash procedure, performed in an office cubicle in Osceola County Court House in Florida, with the clerk slurping loudly from an Arby’s cup while she administered our vows.
The second, a picture-perfect ceremony at a historic Philadelphia church, occurred three and a half months later, and family and friends wondered at what a calm bride I was. Little did some of them know, I had already practiced.
Troy and I now explain our two anniversary dates to our kids by saying that we loved each other so much we wanted to do it twice. The truth was a bit less romantic than that.
Ours was a whirlwind courtship, born over friendly, late night talks and cocktails after we had finished our shifts at a local restaurant in the summer of 1993.
We were both at a crossroads. I had taken a sabbatical from my teaching job to help care for my sick mother and younger siblings, and Troy was headed to the high seas via Orlando, Florida and the U.S. Navy in the fall.
By the end of that summer, we both knew we were better together than apart, and after several months of separation, we got engaged during Troy’s brief Navy leave at Christmas, sealing the deal with an inexpensive ring from an Ocean City jeweler. (We told him we were very in love and very broke, and he came through.)
Plans commenced immediately for a big wedding on Fourth of July weekend, the only time we could reasonably expect Troy, who was still stationed in Orlando, to be able to get a few days off from Naval Nuclear Power School.
I quickly set to work in those pre-e-mail/cell phone days, making plans and keeping my future husband informed through snail mail and regular telephone calls (a detail our offspring now marvel at).
We made a checklist. Church? Check. Hall? Check. Florist? Check. Photographer? Check. Bridesmaid’s gowns that can be worn again? Uhh…sure…check.
And finally, marriage license…Oooops!
We overlooked that little detail in all the planning, and failed to realize that the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania required us to apply together in person during business hours for a license to be married, a requirement flummoxed by the U.S. Navy’s insistence that if they had wanted Seaman Troy M. Cawley to have a wife, they would have issued him one.
But where there is love, there is a way, so instead of writing off the hundreds of dollars of deposits I had already put toward our July nuptials, I booked a cheap flight out of Atlantic City and arrived in Orlando on a Friday afternoon just in time to spring Troy from base and hightail it to the courthouse before they closed for the weekend.
Troy’s Aunt Jane and Uncle Dick, snowbirds living in Osceola County, played multiple roles that weekend — best matron/man of honor, chauffer, innkeeper, and caterer. They even picked up flowers for the bride.
Troy dressed for the occasion in his dress white uniform, and I still wore the tan pantsuit I had traveled in, but nonetheless we must have looked the part.
As we approached the courthouse together, me holding a dozen apricot roses, we apparently stood out like a sore thumb.
“Yer gettin’ married, ern’t ya?” asked one friendly fella, sprawled out in the hot sun on the courthouse steps, wearing faded blue jeans and a straw hat.
“Why yes, yes we are,” we said, holding hands tighter, and wondering how he knew.
“Yeh go right up the steps,” he said. “Weddings to the right, divorces to the left. I been to both…Good luck.”
So began our life together, with what we now warmly refer to as our “Redneck Wedding.”
I stayed the week in Orlando enjoying the closest thing to a honeymoon we got, a weekend in St. Augustine, Florida, and a day “traveling the world” at Disney’s Epcot.
We stayed with Troy’s aunt and uncle, and when Troy was at work, I looked for an apartment and job opportunities. Then it was back “home” for a while.
Less than four months later, some 200 of our closest friends and family members gave up their Fourth of July weekend at the shore to see us wed in a blistering hot afternoon ceremony at picture-perfect Old Swede’s Church in South Philadelphia. Our reception was at the Mummer’s Museum across the street.
It was a fun wedding; folks still say so.
Our lifetime adventure began two days later, when Troy and I boarded a flight together to Orlando, our first of six homes we would have over the next six years.
We have many more pictures of our big wedding, and I love the one of the two of us, leaving Old Swede’s Church, hand in hand, toward our new life together.
But I also love the picture of the two of us in an office cubicle in Florida, smiling at the silliness of it all, and promising each other that no matter what, we’d take our lumps, we’d persevere, and we’d never turn left at the top of the courthouse steps.