The Wheel & Distaff: Love Story, Part IV

Okay, so I finally did say "Yes" to Steve's proposal. Now what? Decisions! Church wedding? Outdoor wedding? Roanoke (where we both live)? Meadows of Dan (my hometown)? Nickelsville (his hometown)? Have a 19th period wedding at Virginia's Explore Park where I was employed at the time? Get married by a judge? Elope? So many decisions!

I was really leaning towards having a period wedding. I have a friend who is a fabulous seamstress and she has made me some gorgeous 19th century period dresses. She was willing to sew something for Steve also. For me, it was not going to be very pricey since I already owned all of the period undergarments, shoes, hats, etc. For Steve, it was going to be way more expensive because he would need EVERYTHING and period shoes are very expensive. We had pretty much decided to go that route and have the ceremony at the Hofauger House at Explore Park. We were even willing to do it as a special event for the park that would be open to the public. Since I had been working in living history for 11 years at that point, it just seemed like a natural thing to do. So, with some planning, the lawn and front porch of the Hofauger House would be a great location! YAY!

Uh-Oh. What if it rains? That would be a disaster!!! So, I checked with the park-powers-that-be to see that if it did rain, could we move the location to the Mountain Union Church that was located in the park. Their response? They would give me a SMALL discount on the price of renting the church. What? Here I am willing to let the park advertise MY wedding as a special event and they are going to charge me when the only thing that it would cost the park was using the space? Well. My hopes of a period wedding were dashed.

On to the next idea. A beach wedding! I had initially wanted to get married at Virginia Beach, but after checking the price of a ceremony and a week long honeymoon there compared with the same thing at Myrtle Beach, let's just say that South Carolina had way more to offer! Figuring out how to get a marriage license in another state wasn't as easy as I had thought that it would be. You would think that we could have gotten a license in Horry County, but for some strange reason in 2000, we had to get it in Marlboro County, SC. We had to fill out all of the paperwork and mail it in weeks in advance so that they would have it ready for us to pick up on our way to the beach.

Now, we have to figure out a date. Hmm. Explore Park was always open to the public from April through October and it was danged near impossible for me to get any approved leave during that time. For years, I have always taken off the week of my birthday in March. So, that is how we figured out a date. I turned 36 on March 12 and then we planned the wedding for March 18. Six months to the day from when we first met! Since we were not inviting people to our wedding, I want to send out announcements that we had gotten married. Here is the announcement:


Trying to get a good scan of our wedding announcement proved to be almost impossible. It is two dolphins swimming on a wave with little silver hearts floating up.

We contacted a business called "Beach Weddings" to do our ceremony. It would just be me, Steve, and the reverend. We also had to find a place to stay for our honeymoon. We finally decided on The Palace Resort (A piece of trivia for you: The Palace was the tallest building in Myrtle Beach in 2000). Our suite was oceanfront on the 17th floor, so the view was just amazing.

My good friend, Robin Ferguson, made my wedding dress for me. I made my headpiece and veil. My shoes were white satin embroidered with blue. I borrowed a handkerchief from Steve for something borrowed. For something old, I had on one of my mother's rings.

Yep! That wind would just about sandblast your face off!

The morning of the wedding arrived and the wind was really strong! I had originally planned on getting married standing on the beach near the surf line, but not even a bride looks beautiful with her hemline above her head! So, there was this pretty little putting green area that was somewhat sheltered by the motel and I decided that we would get married there, facing the ocean. Before we left the room, Steve told me to be sure and remind him to get the marriage license. Of course, going down in the elevator, I remembered that we had forgotten it. The reverend was already there to marry us, so I waited in the lobby with him while Steve went back to the room to get the license. It was a little embarrassing because everyone was staring at me!

You can tell, the wind was bad, even with the building sheltered us

We finally got our act together and got married. When the reverend got to the part about, "you may now kiss the bride", Steve did. All of a sudden, loud cheering and hollering erupted! When we looked, there were people on many of the balconies of our motel and the one next door sharing in our special moment! That was a pretty cool thing since we did not have any wedding guests.

That is The Palace Resort behind us

That evening, I wanted to go to Pier 14 for our wedding dinner since it was over the ocean. For our dessert, we had Key Lime pie, so ever since then, we always have that for our anniversary and special occasions.

The most heartbreaking thing about our wedding was that the reverend was also taking the photos as part of the package. Would you believe that the stupid man actually brought a new camera that he had NEVER USED to take almost every photo?! He used his old camera for three photos of us. The rest were all blurry. The ones of me and Steve on the sand were taken by kind folks passing by using our camera. I am so thankful that we at least did that!

So, I think for a relationship that started out on the internet, we are doing pretty good! We will be celebrating our 13th anniversary next month.