Our Second Wedding

   Tomorrow is the first anniversary of our second wedding. I consider myself quite blessed and lucky. Most women have to divorce in order to have a second wedding. We did not.
  Some of you may be thinking that this is a form of vow renewal. It's becoming more common for couples to renew their vows in a ceremony that is a lot like a wedding. I personally have never understood the whole thought behind a vow renewal. I didn't think they ever expired.
  It was not a vow renewal. It was an actual wedding.
  Let me explain. In 2004 C and I were married in a traditional Lutheran wedding ceremony. It was a nice ceremony and a good day. The friends and family who were there had a good time and were happy for us. I never felt good about the wedding. C wasn't Lutheran and I was only Lutheran on paper. We married in a church only because my mother insisted upon it. It felt hypocritical to me to have a religious ceremony when I no longer practiced that religion.
  I didn't like my dress. I wanted to find something with a three quarter or even a little cap sleeve. There wasn't anything. Literally every dress was sleeveless or had spaghetti straps. I didn't like the veil, but when you have the white dress you have to have a veil. I was 35 years old and I looked silly.
  When you have a church wedding there has to be flowers, decorations and programs. I didn't like any of it. I just felt like it was a waste of money and time and too much stress.
 The only thing I liked about it was our reception. It was a dinner at a restaurant. There was food and toasting and talking between courses. Many people told me later that it was the best time they had had at a wedding. That was just what I wanted. I wanted to gather all the people I care about together to feed them and share my joy at this new journey I was about to take with the man I love.
  Fast forward to 2013. C and I had moved to St. Paul. I began to go the church with him. After several years and study and conversations with trusted people, I adopted C's faith and was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Choosing to adopt a new faith is a very personal thing. I believe that this is the right spiritual path for me.
  The LDS have some beliefs that I was not exposed to before. One of those beliefs is that families can be together forever. Literally. I really liked that concept. It is a concept that I believe many people have. We want to believe that we will see people that we love and care about when we get to whatever comes after this life. It is especially meaningful to me as I married C  when I was 35 and we have an 18 year age gap. I won't have the luxury of celebrating a 45 or 50th anniversary with him. Knowing that we can be together forever gives a sense of comfort and responsibility. (I'll cover that in another column.) In order to be together forever we would need to have a ceremony called a Sealing in a Temple.
  This meant that I could, we could have a second wedding. I could have a do-over. I could finally marry in a ceremony that would be more meaningful to me than the one in 2004. I could have the wedding I wanted, one with more spiritual emphasis than temporal.
  It meant preparation, but I was determined. Nn November of 2014 we were able to set a date. Then we began to prepare for the wedding. There wasn't much that needed to be done.
  Since LDS Temples are considered to be houses of the Lord in a literal fashion, they are beautifully decorated and immaculately kept. No outside decorations are allowed, but they are not needed. The ceremony of sealing is the same for all couples. It is very simple. I would not need to choose music or Scripture readings. We would be sealed by whatever sealer would be available that day. We needed to select two witnesses. I needed to find a suitable dress. That's it.
  I was able to find the dress that I always wanted. It had a lace top with long sleeves and a long skirt simple and elegant. I couldn't wear this dress after the ceremony because it would be too cold. I had a teal skirt and top to wear for our reception. I picked out a simple tiara to wear at the reception, just for fun.
  Our reception was just like our first one. We gathered our closest friends together, those who had been supportive of us during out preparation for this day. We sent out simple invitations. That was all we did.
  On the day of the wedding we went to the Temple. My friend Sarah agreed to be my escort. Her job was to help me to dress and to be my support. Sarah and I arrived at the Temple early. There was some paperwork to do. Then Sarah and I were taken into the Bride's Room. C went elsewhere to dress and prepare for the ceremony.
  The Bride's Room is a room in the Temple set aside for a woman to dress for her wedding. It is a spacious and beautiful room. Everything one would need is in there. I was touched at the fact that I was treated as if I were a bride marrying for the first time.
  Once C and I were dressed we were escorted to another room to wait. Once all the guests were seated we would enter the sealing room. It was so special to sit together and contemplate what was about to happen. You would never had known that we had been married for a little over 10 years.
  C and I were then escorted to the sealing room where our guests were waiting. We sat down. The sealer asked if there were any family in the room. C and I are both mostly estranged from our birth families,but we also felt as if we had been given a new family in the form of our friends. I gestured to all the guests and said, "This is our family, they are all here."
  We then took our places at the alter and the ceremony began. The sealer made comments after. He didn't know us well, but his comments had meaning. He invited us to kneel side by side and look into the mirror in front of us. The sealing rooms in Temples have two mirrors that face each other. When you look into them, there is no end to the image that you see. It is just like our marriage.
  It was just what I wanted devoid of all the trappings that I felt were unnecessary and full of meaning.
  There was one thing that we did not change. We had a reception in a restaurant. We had a good meal with toasting and signing between courses.We had a cake which was baked and decorated by my friend, Dana. We wanted to share our joy with those we love as we celebrated this milestone in our lives. Everyone had a good time.  I was satisfied. I had the wedding of my dreams.
  This morning I brought up the top layer from our cake. It is a carrot cake, my favourite. Tomorrow C and I will eat it and remember the wonderful second wedding we had.