We were married within 3 months of our first date. “When you know, you know”, as they say, and when we knew we wed. Full disclosure: our “meeting” in Hawaii was really a carefully orchestrated re-meeting of the person we vaguely remembered from one class senior year at college, so our first date was really 5 years in the making. But “engaged after 4 days, married 10 weeks later” sounds much better, and it sounds more like how it felt – quick, romantic, and sure.
Brian on our 4-day Hawaiian first date
During a work lunch break we headed to the San Diego oceanside courthouse, and by 12:30 we were husband-and-wifed and on our way to Venissimo Cheese for a celebratory purchase far too expensive and in quantities too large to justify on any day other than your wedding day.
Even an elopement deserves a honeymoon. We spent ours at the Hotel del Coronado. Highly recommend.
I had met his parents once before our courthouse elopement, at a Mexican restaurant in New York after he’d called them saying “you should probably meet her… soon.” He’d never met mine – a fact my parents were and still are remarkably accepting of. “What if I don’t like him…?” my sister asked on W 10th street, heading to meet her new brother-in-law at my cozy apartment. “Lie?” I said, knowing she’d love him, and she does.
Seven months after we eloped we celebrated the more traditional way – white dress, friends and family, toasts, bridesmaids, champagne. That day was wonderful too, and nothing compares to seeing in one room the faces of everyone who loves you enough to travel to a remote New England town in late October.
Photo by the great Joseph Prezioso
We had two wedding days, and we loved them both for what they were. Like anything else, there’s no limit to the shape and size of a wedding, and we celebrate the anniversaries of our two uniquely-ours wedding days with fond memories, our dog Gatsby, and always (always.) with cheese.