Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul (3 page)

Whether you’re getting married, have been married for thirty years or just love a great love story, this book will lift your spirits with stories about unique proposals, the perfect dress, wedding day memories, first years and the meaning of marriage. You’ll be touched by the story of long-lost loves reunited after twenty-five years; of the unconditional love between a groom and his dying fiancée; and of the undying love between a bride and her deceased father. But what’s a wedding without laughter? With humorous tales from a groom’s little sister who plays a mischievous joke to a woman who mistakes her boyfriend’s proposal for something else, over and over again these stories will make you laugh and cry while filling your heart with delight.

But you don’t have to be a bride to enjoy this book.
Bride’s Soul
is for anyone who believes in the power of love and commitment. Authored by other brides-to-be, husbands, mothers, fathers of the bride, ministers and family members, this book, chapter by chapter, will take you on a journey beginning with the courtship of a man and woman, and culminating in the wisdom offered by those who have loved their spouses year after year after year.

While compiling this book, our vision of its impact on the reader changed. In the beginning, we thought
Bride’s Soul
would be a fun book for a bride planning her wedding. As we became entrenched in the lives of the thousands of people who graciously shared their love stories, our hearts seemed to grow—thus the vision grew. We are blessed to have the opportunity to share with you what this book has done for us.

It is our hope that this book brings you comfort and joy—that the stories will allow you to pause for a moment and reflect on your life and the experiences that brought you to this time. We hope the stories of friends and family will evoke a celebration of family during your time of transition; that proposal stories will take you back to that unforgettable moment when he asked you to be his forever; that stories of gleaning wisdom will exemplify ways to keep your love alive. But most importantly, we hope that once you read this book, you will realize that perfection is of no consequence—that logistical mishaps are trivial and unimportant—and that when it’s all said and done, what’s most important is your commitment to one another.

As you enjoy
Chicken Soup for the Bride’s Soul,
we hope that you marvel in the true meaning of this precious time by enjoying the laughter and touching moments of your wedding day and of your life together.

Share with Us

We would love to hear your reactions to the stories in this book. Please let us know what your favorite stories were and how they affected you.

We also invite you to send us stories you would like to see published in future editions of
Chicken Soup for the Soul
. You can send us either stories you have written or stories written by others. Please send submissions to:

Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 30880
Santa Barbara, CA 93130
Fax: 805-563-2945

You can also access e-mail or find a current list of planned books at the
Chicken Soup for the Soul
Web site at
www.chickensoup.com
.

We hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed compiling, editing and writing it.

1
THE MEANING
OF MARRIAGE

S
ometimes it’s like being on opposites sides of a chasm and lovingly building a bridge toward each other.

Becca Kaufman and Paula Ramsey
Creators of
WeddingQuestions.com

Twenty-Six Years—
An Unfolding Romance

T
hroughout our years together, we had built up a history and a closeness so subtle we didn’t even know it was there.

Erma Bombeck

“Now, who is it that’s getting married?” my husband whispered to me as we settled into our pew after being led down the church aisle by a solemn-faced young usher.

We’d had this discussion at least three times. Once when I discovered the calligraphied envelope buried under a pile of discarded grocery flyers after he’d reached the mailbox first. Another when he knocked the invitation off its magnet on the refrigerator door—where I had mounted it in plain view. And a few days earlier when I reminded him we couldn’t go to the opening of an action flick because we were going to the wedding of a teaching colleague of mine.

Despite all this, I wasn’t concerned he’d forgotten the names embossed on the invitation. After twenty-six years of marriage, I’ve learned that the mere mention of the word “wedding” seems to trigger a memory lapse in my husband.

So, as we took our seats, I calmly whispered back, “The computer teacher and the Bible teacher’s son.”

“Sounds like the title of one of those romance novels you read on the treadmill at the gym,” he muttered and settled down, probably to count the number of women sitting by themselves who had left their lucky husbands behind.

The ringing chords of the organ accompanied a lilting soprano and filled the flower-scented air. It reminded me of my own wedding day and the joy-tinged nervousness that made my stomach dance with butterflies as I stood hidden from guests, awaiting my cue. I wondered if the bride was calming her own fluttering emotions.

I knew the groom was. He was a quiet man who didn’t seek the limelight and for whom, according to his mother, the anticipation of standing to face 400 guests was daunting.

When, tuxedoed and handsome, he led his entourage to take their places at the altar steps, I looked for signs of distress. Fidgety hands. Sweating brow. Restless feet. Instead, I saw the sweet smile of a happy man as he anticipated the sweeping entry of the woman he loved. And I didn’t need the strains of the “Trumpet Voluntary” to know the bride was poised to enter. The groom’s face reflected her presence.

As we rose in honor, I felt a twinge of envy. It had been a long time since my husband had looked at me with that kind of glow.
Maybe twenty-six years of marriage does that,
I thought. Maybe the day we said our vows, the day he looked at me in my bridal white and his eyes said, “I love you and you are beautiful” was the climax of our own romantic saga, the best it was ever going to get. And maybe our confidence in the first blush of love became a memory buried under years of hard work to keep our marriage going.

The last strains of music faded and the bride’s glowing face, shadowed by layers of pearl-encrusted tulle, turned from her father to her groom. That’s when a little tear threatened to slip down my cheek. In the candlelit softness, they
did
look like a perfect couple from one of those romantic novels I liked to sneak into the gym.

A tiny part of me mourned the loss of my storybook-romance illusions as the groom reached for his bride’s hand. I wanted to be them again—partners facing a clean slate, oblivious to all but their love. I wanted to steal a piece of the mystical magic of new love and rediscover its feelings of hope, promise and possibilities—the same fresh feelings my husband and I shared on our own wedding day.

Suddenly, as if he knew my thoughts, my husband turned to me and whispered, “I like the way you look in that red dress, Kris.” His eyes filled with a warmth that still melts my heart, and his thumb stroked my palm like it did twenty-six years ago when we stood in a rose-perfumed garden and he said, “I do.”

Inching into the shelter of his encircling arm, I remembered the long-ago wedding promises we made and have honored over many good and some not-so-good years. I thought of our mutual respect, of the love that drew us together, of the sure foundation of trust and commitment we continued to build on.

All too soon, the groom kissed his bride and, beaming, they walked hand-in-hand down a petal-strewn aisle . . . into a star-studded night.

As the bride left to face her future, I wished her happiness. But I no longer wanted to be her. I was glad I was right where I was. With the man I love. Hand-in-hand, we followed the newlyweds into the luminous night—and a beckoning future of romance.

Kris Hamm Ross

“What I’m really looking for is someone who can clean up after me.”

Reprinted by permission of Bob Schochet.

My Love Is Like a Red, Red Marker

F
or two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.

Bill Cosby

I am, admittedly, a hopeless romantic. Not surprisingly, then, when my husband and I celebrated our anniversary recently, I bought him one dozen red permanent markers. These are, after all, the traditional gift for the man who spends many of his waking hours drawing shapes on the toes of his white tube socks.

Why does he do this? Because, he explains, for every white tube sock there is only one perfect partner. To preserve these sacred unions, my spouse assigns each pair its own symbol—a triangle, a square, a stick-figure wife throwing up her arms in despair.

For a man who on more than one occasion has mended his clothing with a staple gun, such conscientious sock matching seems strange. Just the same, I admit I find my husband’s little eccentricities endearing and often make note of them in a growing file labeled “Mounting Evidence.”

One recent entry reads: “Today husband is very happy. Seems the supermarket is having a buy-one/get-one-free rump-roast extravaganza. Spouse believes a freezer should always contain enough meat to host an intimate barbecue for all branches of the U.S. military.”

I could understand hoarding power tools. Or fishing equipment. But discounted cuts of meat? My husband wasn’t deprived of food as a child. He doesn’t overbuy generally. And, to my knowledge, frozen hunks of beef do not increase in value over time.

His other fixations are no more easily understood. Take this recent notation:

“Today husband is mad at me. In what can only be described as a wild crime spree, I removed sixty-six cents from his change dish, in order to purchase two postage stamps.”

To my husband, loose change is not actual, usable money, but some sort of endangered species he is determined to preserve. Every night he lovingly removes all coins from his pockets, and then gently places them in the dish. When the dish is full, he separates the change and stores it in large containers at an undisclosed location in our garage. As I understand it, the plan is to buy even larger containers at some point.

The Mounting Evidence file continues to grow with each tender entry. But yesterday, it closed with this startling observation: “Today husband claimed I’m sexy. Hmmm. Make sure to carefully match his socks, overstock the freezer and self-fund all future stamp purchases.”

Carrie St. Michel

A Second Chance

W
hen I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I lay in my hospital bed, eyes filled with tears as I stared longingly at the crisp October sky. This was my long-awaited wedding day. But I wouldn’t be strolling down the aisle in my white satin gown as planned.

I dated Yates for six years, during high school and part of college. We were the proverbial high-school sweethearts— he was my first love and I his. Young and naive, we discovered we each had unique, individual dreams that required pursuits down different paths. So, we parted ways.

For a decade, Yates and I lived separate lives, with different geographies and different experiences. Several failed relationships and many mistakes along the way, we each discovered an unexplainable void within ourselves. After almost ten years of no contact, Yates reached me through my mother. We reunited and immediately realized what we had been missing in our lives was each other.

Within three months we were engaged.

On that beautiful October day, my husband-to-be sat next to me on the hospital bed, caressing my hand with sympathetic understanding. We both knew our journey together would not commence that day.

An unfortunate twist of fate two days prior left me with a collapsed lung, several broken ribs, a fractured pelvis and a fractured clavicle. Hours of phone calls ensued, canceling vendors and airline reservations, informing family and friends. Anger welled as I relived—over and over— the memory of the truck that ran the stop sign a block from my home. It T-boned my car, catapulting me into the passenger seat, leaving me virtually paralyzed, physically and emotionally.