I went home that night feeling giddy. He told me to start looking at rings on the Internet so he could get an idea of what I liked. I was thinking beach glass but he wanted something a little more than that for me. (I still like the beach glass idea, but at the time I knew he was trying to honor me.)
One beautiful, clear night, I was doing my laundry at my bible friend’s house. (I don’t really call her that. I just keep using that title to preserve her anonymity.)
My biker friend (I don’t call him that either, as you can imagine) was no longer just a friend. He called and told me he was coming over to visit me at her house.
When he arrived, he asked if I’d like to go for a walk out in the beauty of the night. She lived a few streets away from where we had first met, and he was directing us that way.
I had a feeling I knew what was about to transpire.
Ten minutes later, we were standing in front of The Mission, right at the spot where I had first asked him about biking. He got down on his knees and asked me to marry him, ring in hand. I got down on my knees at his level and said yet another emphatic “YES!” We hugged under the stars.
It was February 29th, leap year night, and we decided to set a wedding date for May 22nd – exactly one year after the day we had met.
I had always hoped to get married before turning 30. I had also been hoping in recent years to get married while my dad could still walk me down the aisle. He was an older dad in his late 70s, in good shape but with heart problems that plagued him from his family line. I wanted him to hand me off to the man who would take over loving and caring for me.
Because I was barely scraping by and my dad had lost my parents’ money in the stock market, there wasn’t a dime I could contribute. I felt uncomfortable assuming that my new fiancé should feel excited about covering myriad costs. Thankfully, both of us were alright with planning on a shoestring budget. More like a dental floss budget. While some girls grow up dreaming of the palatial princess-like wedding they will one day have, I was catching frogs in the alley. I had no long-held dreams of what it needed to look like. I knew we could make it magical regardless of money.
I had done a lot of photographic favors for friends in the past, so many people contributed their talents to us in return – a makeup artist, a guitarist, a fancy car chauffeur, etc.. A friend of mine kindly dipped gobs of strawberries in chocolate, and even the stunning dress I wore was generously lended to me.
Neither of us had ever been interested in drinking, so alcohol was absent at our wedding. That was a lovely cost saver. At the time, I was assisting a wedding photographer and didn’t like watching wedding parties or guests drink their way through a couple’s most meaningful day of their life. For some reason I’ve always hated the idea of alcohol and drugs, ever since I was a kid. As unusual as it may have seemed to some of our guests, we served juice and sparkling cider. It was so us.
Wedding photographers are very expensive, and the one I worked for charged between $5,000-$10,000 for the day, so I felt funny about asking her to do it as a favor to us since I hadn’t known her very long. But I knew I wanted someone to document it. I decided instead to ask a long-time newspaper photographer from the Santa Barbara News-Press what he would charge us. “I’m not a wedding photographer,” he said cautiously. I assured him that his title didn’t matter to me. He had photographed anything and everything in his decades of experience, so it would be fine. “Okay,” he said, “how about $75 per hour?” He was great – silent and solid at what he did. One of my favorite photos in life is one he took of my dad and me hugging as my dad handed me away.
Both of my parents walked me down the aisle that magical day, 13 days before my 30th birthday. Actually, it was a beautiful wooded park in Montecito. My husband had passed it hundreds of times on his bike rides. One of the pastors of our church married us, and our families and friends vowed to always encourage us in our bond to each other.
My dad died a year and a half later.
to be continued…
Copyright © 2020 Edee Kulper, excerpt from a book in progress
