Ojai Valley News Blog

Commentary by Bill Buchanan
Today is my 34th anniversary. Thirty-four years ago today, Ava and I said our vows before a modest group in an old Methodist church in the tiny town of Madison, W.V. Ava and I decided to have a small ceremony. This decision was made easy by the fact that we had no money. My mother offered to pay for a big wedding in my hometown in Alabama, but neither of us wanted a big affair. Plus, I had just gotten transferred to a new job, and didn’t have a lot of free time. Ava’s family lived far away in western Nebraska, and would not be able to attend. So we had a small ceremony with my mother, my sister, our landlord and his girlfriend, and about six co-workers in attendance. Weddings in the South can easily get out of hand. It is a similar situation to the old nuclear arms race between the United States and the Russians. Someone would test a new weapon, and mass produce them, and then the other side would test a new weapon, and mass produce even more. Someone has six bridesmaids, then someone else has to have eight, and pretty soon it spirals completely out of control. A few months ago, Ava helped work on the flowers for a wedding of 800 guests. That is insanity to me. You could make a hefty payment on a house for the newlyweds with the price of many weddings and receptions. Ava and I attended a wedding last weekend. It was a lovely ceremony, except for the priest. He tried to be cute and make his message contemporary, but it just came off as goofy to me. Fortunately, he did not talk long. As I sat there, my mind wandered back to my own wedding. I cannot remember one thing the minister said. I only remember standing there, sweating and nervous, just trying not to drop the ring. More importantly, I didn’t want to break the ring. The wedding bands we picked out only a few days earlier were being sized, and would not be ready for the wedding. So Ava and I went to K-Mart and picked out the gaudiest and tackiest rings we could find to use during the ceremony. I think we paid $10 for both of them. After the wedding, Ava and I and my mother and sister went back to the trailer where Ava and I lived, and had a “reception” of lasagna, French bread and salad that Ava had made earlier, accompanied by bottle of cheap sparkling wine that our landlord had provided as a wedding gift. The next morning, I got up at the crack of dawn and went to my new job. So, though we didn’t have a big wedding with 16 bridesmaids and more guests than the population of the town I grew up in, or a fantasy honeymoon on a sun-drenched island, we were married just the same. And the good thing about marriage is that it is not how you start out, but where you end up. Today I have been married to the woman I love for 34 years. That is something to celebrate.