Seven Years Married, Fourteen Years Together

This weekend was our seventh anniversary. Our wedding was pretty simple, though it wasn't originally planned that way. My husband asked me to marry him when I was 16 and he was 18, though we agreed from the start that we would wait a while to get married. At first, we thought we would get married on a beach with a very casual wedding. Then when we actually started planning our wedding, six years later, we decided to have a Renaissance wedding, complete with the castle venue, costumes all around, and period food. When we got quotes from various vendors, though, we decided a big wedding was ridiculous. We'd already been living together for four years, owned our own condo, and wanted to start our family right after getting married. Having a big wedding would leave us with no money for baby gear.

So we went with a simple ceremony in our backyard, on July 3rd. While Doug and I recognize the need for our marriage to be legal, we don't feel that the government or any religious official should have to sanction our marriage. Our marriage is just between us, you know? Bringing clergy or a justice of the peace into it just felt weird. So, while we did make our marriage legal (we didn't share any of the details with our families), we had our own ceremony, conducted by ourselves, with our mothers doing a little bit, too. It was very sweet and just our style. Then we went out to Legal Seafoods with our immediate families to celebrate. The next day, we had a huge BBQ bash with all of our friends and family, catered by a great local restaurant, Woodman's of Essex. I'm so glad we did things the way we did.. it really fit with our personalities much better than a traditional wedding.

Yesterday, we took all the children out to Legal Sea Foods for lunch. They seated us in a booth right next to the function room, and the hostess overheard us telling the kids about our wedding. The meal was wonderful (we don't eat there often, and I had forgotten how truly delicious the food is), and just as we were leaving, our waiter came out with a plate of little desserts with a candle. Now, this is why I love Legal. Great food, and they were sweet enough to give us free dessert because it was our anniversary. Thumbs up to Legal Sea Foods!