It was a romance worth remembering.  It was a wedding that was unbelievable.  Nobody in Pryor had ever seen a military wedding.  I certainly hadn't.  Nine Navy and Marine Corps pilots flew in to Tulsa the day before the wedding in a Beechcraft in time for the rehearsal, and dinner.

One of my friend's mom had the dinner on the lawn at their farm.  She was an antique collector, and the tables looked like something out of a magazine.  When the dinner was over, the guys grabbed Ken  who was yelling and kicking, and carried him to the cow pond and threw him in.   My husband-to-be ruined his suit, his shoes and everything else.  And smelled like cow poop.  What can I say, It was a rehearsal dinner to be remembered as well.

I had spent the week preparing all the flowers, (I worked for a florist).  I made most of the bridesmaid's and maid of honor's dresses.  Nine of them.  In pastels.  And pretty much decorated the church as well.  I bought my dress in Tulsa--on sale of course.  It was gorgeous, with dozens of french buttons up the back.  My family was not well-heeled, but everything was spectacular.  The groomsmen, complete with white uniforms, swords, medals and wings simply added the final touch.

There was no air conditioning in the church and it was an August 104 degree day.  I don't remember coming down the aisle, I don't remember the vows.  I do remember Ken's dad--who was bald--having sweat running between his eyes and dripping off the end of his nose as he preformed our ceremony.  And I remember returning down the aisle after we were officially married, and the groomsmen's clanking swords as they made an arch--which we went underneath.  They swatted me on the butt with a sword as we came out from under the arch--no one had warned me of this tradition.  Everyone got a kick out of my reaction.

People talked about our wedding for years after that.  The church was packed--no empty seats.  In Pryor, if you wanted to come to a wedding, you came--and everyone knew me.  Everyone knew Ken.   Ken's dad had baptized and married half the town when he had been the pastor there.  If it hadn't been for the tornado, which blew down the church and caused the elders to call Ken's dad to come to Pryor to rebuild it, none of this would have happened.  He brought his family, my family came to that church and they became friends.  And I married the brick laying preacher's son.