Our Elopement

The photos from my wedding day resemble mug shots. Think Bonnie and Clyde. In those black and white glossies my new husband and I have that cocky half-smile glimmer, like we'd skipped class and gotten away with it, like we'd thieved a car for an all-night joyride and returned it unnoticed at dawn. The photos, all six of them, prove two things: we were in love, and we were in love NOW. No, we didn't want the buffet (chicken/steak? chicken/steak?) didn't need the rings (that gold silver platinum titanium madness), and we didn't need a church. We figured the eyes of God saw us all the time anyway, so give us a courthouse, a witness and some vows and we'd boil it down to business, folks. Ten bucks and we could be married? "Let's go," we said. "We're in love."

We had known each other a whopping four months and had been face-to-face only half that time. Tony was on the road a lot, peddling vacuums to Nebraska farmers and wealthy New Mexicans, and when he wasn't bedded down in some cheap motel room he was sleeping on his friend's couch. I was the bright-eyed schoolteacher reforming delinquent middle-schoolers, living at home, trying to save money to pay back a college debt. The main thing we had in common was that neither of us was in the market for love. Period. For varying reasons, we had given it up completely. What a crock it was, what a shiest.

And then BLAM-OH! You know what happened.

We met at church, simple enough. Met for pool and wagered on a football game. Talked on the phone, went to dinner, a hike, dinner again, a movie, the usual. But like they all say, this was altogether different.

"An electrical current was passing between them that no one could dare cross," my mother is fond of saying, and it was true. The proverbial planet collision smashed our sensibilities to smidgens and scattered everyone in its wake.

Until then I had dismissed my suitors one by one, brushing them aside forever with a flick of my ice queen hand. Too whiny, too shy, too awkward, too obnoxious, none of them were right. Why drag it out? Maybe I was supposed to be a nun. So nose in book I went, snubbing men and becoming an achievement connoisseur. I self-assuredly planned trips around the world, college degrees, Great American novels. That was all quite enough for me until T-O-N-Y came along.

(Noting my history, however, my brother soon declared at the dinner table, "Somebody's gonna get hurt and it's not going to be Andrea.")

But I had it, real bad. So did Tony. We got blasted with Cupid's arrow and it felt darn good. Our tornado romance culminated into friendship, true love, and one gigantic faux pas: the elopement.

I'll never forget the May morning we decided to do it, to actually get hitched. I was wearing French polka dots, he was wearing white. I don't know who asked whom, or whether the question was popped at all. But we sped down to the courthouse in his ugly blue Astro van, parked at a meter that luckily had forty-five minutes left, and raced up the steps of the echo-y, somber municipal building. The electrical current was happening still-- I don't remember a single face I saw that day-- and we followed the brass plate signs to the top floor where we would become MR. and MRS. I remember the clerk asking us, "Are you sure?", us exhaling excited yesses, saying our "'til death do us part" vows, signing our names, and having exactly the right amount of cash between us to pay for the whole transaction. And that was that. We were married.

We thought it quite fun as we ran down the steps to the van, stopped for lunch at old Barney's diner, and headed home to think about how exactly we would tell my family. It seemed so surreal. The news as it would soon strike my father's ears, like a sledge hammer to the Liberty Bell no doubt, would be very real indeed.

No, he wasn't pleased. In fact, as soon as I said, "Dad, Tony and I got married today," he walked out of the room and didn't speak to us for eight days. I can't say I blame him. I mean, I didn't even have Elvis walk me down the aisle, in fact there was no aisle at all. No dress, no flower girl and no church. No church, that was the big thing (he was a pastor after all). But there were vows, and where there are vows there's a marriage, right?

The deed was officially done. The blushing bride and dashing groom were altogether thrilled and cautious and cavalier. "So what's the worst that can happen? We get kicked out of the family?" Tony asked.

"Well, he could kill you," I said. Yes, this could get bad. But we were so in love!

We laid low for that week and a day but bravely showed up for church the next Sunday. After everyone left we had a sit-down on the altar steps with my parents, to make things right, to explain that even though they were done hastily our vows were a very serious matter to us.

My parents cried and pardoned us for the shock inflicted on their parental hearts. "Well, I love you Andrea, and you too, Tony. I know you'll have a wonderful life together," my father said. He then paused and looked grave. "But you two are idiots."

The laughter rolled from our bellies and filled that little stained glass church to the brim.

Ah, love.