Magic and Mayhem

Daryl and I have a tradition of getting married again every year on or around our wedding anniversary.  It started when we first got married and couldn’t decide on a theme/style.  We said we’d just have a new wedding every year and we have! 

It’s generally just a small, private thing where we renew our vows and focus on why we fell in love and started this family in the first place.  Now that we have kids we involve them and it’s a neat way for us to all focus on what we love about our life together and each other.

Over the years we’ve had a wedding at midnight on a dock with the wind whipping around us, at a Native American site where we do volunteer work, by a dam and at a railroad park after dark.  For our ten year anniversary we had a theme wedding at Pioneer Village where we invited friends to dress up.  We used the historic church for the ceremony and then the girls and I changed when we retired to the saloon for old time music, refreshments and entertainment.

This year we did it in Sioux Falls at the Japanese Gardens.

When we got there, we found out that the historic steps were too steep and long for Daryl to use so we had to just do it on the steps themselves. It was a nice peaceful spot anyway though.
We generally just wing it (we’re a wing-it kind of family in just about everything!) and that’s what we did this time too.

Anna gathered some flowers so she could be the flower girl.

Victoria provided entertainment by playing the dulcimer and did the photography.

Alex thought he might throw a fit but settled instead on nursing.

And Jack pretty much just acted like a monkey, which is what he likes best.

First we were silly, then we were serious.  We said why we loved each other and thanked each other and the kids for our fabulous life together.  The big kids all took turns asking us to swear to various things and Anna happily pronounced us married.

We don’t do anniversary presents and we generally have to call our friend Nancy to ask when our anniversray date even is (her anniversary is the same day).  Sometime each September we do something like this as a family though, and I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate.