Weddings are such milestones and memory-makers. This week marks our 42^nd wedding anniversary! Sometimes I marvel and wonder that I’m even old enough to be able to say that. Never mind that my 50^th High School reunion is coming up in a couple of years, or that I have two kids who are in their 30s, and five grandkids to boot. The numerical possibility is obviously there, and it is a happy day to celebrate.

The anniversary has me remembering those days 42 years ago….

Bob and I met as freshmen at the University of Georgia. I’d met his childhood best friend the year before at a summer long National Science Foundation Student Science Training Program I attended at UGA, and looked the friend up when I returned the next year for school. Bob drove his parents’ ’65 VW Bus, so he was the designated driver anytime a group of us wanted to go somewhere. I remember one of those trips going to his house to pick up something and I met his folks then. It would be 4 years before Bob and I became good friends and another year or two before we married.

Our wedding was pretty simple, especially compared to some of today’s lavish extravaganzas. Even if my folks had had the money to pay for such an affair, we had no desire for anything that big. I was much happier with a simple wedding with direct connections to people most important to me.

My mom was a key player in preparations. She used to do calligraphy-like lettering and “illuminated” scrolls, and so she created the wedding invitation on a large sheet of paper that a local printer reduced to card size.

Mom was also quite the seamstress. She made my wedding dress, starting with a regular dress pattern that fit me well, and she figured out how to make it long with a bit of a sweep in the back. I remember her creating a mock-up out of an old sheet to make sure the pattern hung just right. She added long, lace sleeves and cuffs to the pattern as well, and made the cap and veil. It was a beautiful dress and I was proud to wear it because she’d made it.

She also made bridesmaid dresses for my sister and best friend. Mom made her own dress, and a dress for my grandmother, and for her sister, who would be playing the piano for the ceremony.

We got married at my grandparents’ little country church out the Nowhere Road, just north of Athens, Georgia. Our preacher was a college friend who’d just been recently ordained. We had the ceremony audio-taped, and at one point that we were saying our vows, my voice changes slightly from nearly crying to nearly laughing. A fly chose that moment to flit around my face and I had to squelch the chuckles.

Our reception was a simple, typical (for the day), southern-style reception—nothing but cake, punch, cheese straws, wedding cookies (those powdery shortbread-like cookies), mints, and nuts. The cake and cookies came from my grandfather’s bakery there in Athens, the A&A Bakery.

The cake was layered with some of my favorite memories of the day…. My grandmother used to decorate wedding cakes for the bakery until arthritis in her hands made it nearly impossible. She could make icing roses like no one I’ve ever seen before or since. We coaxed her out of retirement to do our cake: two tiers on the bottom, and columns to hold up the top tier. The roses were yellow to match the yellow daisies I carried in my bouquet.

The church was about 30 minutes away from the bakery. That morning, my grandfather drove the bakery truck with the cake in two boxes—one for the bottom two layers, one for the top. He was always so careful with his deliveries, and that day was no different. Until my dad decided to help….

Before Papa could stop him, Daddy grabbed the first box he saw in the back of the truck, turned it sideways, and tucked it under his arm. That was the box with the top tier of the wedding cake for the reception that was to happen in a matter of hours. No way could my grandmother make a trip back to the bakery to redecorate another top tier—even if she’d had time and energy from such, she was also recovering from shingles, and we were lucky that she was able to be there at all.

Thankfully, my uncle also was a cake decorator, so he made the quick trip back to town and iced and decorated a replacement tier. Careful inspection revealed a slight color difference in the yellow on the top and the bottom two layers. It was a lovely cake, and served its purpose well, but the story didn’t end there. We had planned to freeze the top tier and save it for our first wedding anniversary, and Papa offered to keep it in the bakery’s deep freeze.

After the reception and after we’d left for our honeymoon, Daddy decided to help carry stuff back out of the church. He managed to pick up the box with the top tier of the cake—and turned it sideways again! [A year later, when we went looking for the cake, we found a box labeled “Melissa Driggers’ wedding cake, 7/15/1978.” My uncle didn’t know what new last name really was and guessed. Inside was a characteristically squished cake in it, so we knew it was ours—and it was still quite tasty!]

I knew none of the cake story before the ceremony—and probably would have freaked out if I did. We only heard the story when we got back from our honeymoon, and at that point, it was just one of those tales that really made the day even more special. My dad was a nut, and my grandfather (his father-in-law) just got tickled at him and tried to help him where he could. I don’t think I ever heard exactly what Papa said when he realized what Daddy had done. He wasn’t one to swear, and I suspect his reaction was some combination of disbelief, horror, and amusement.

All in all, it was a lovely day, and a lovely wedding, surrounded by friends and family. And it was a good enough start to a marriage to get us at least to year 42—and counting. I’m looking forward to the next 42!

“If I could save time in a bottle,
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day like a treasure and then
Again just to spend them with you.”
        —Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle

© Melissa Clark Vickers 2020

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