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Bernie April 2005
To the surprise to our friends and family, we got married Feb 22, 2005 in Bellingham Washington. We had a really whirlwind romance anyway with our engagement just after Christmas of 2004, people were rather caught off guard with our wedding a short time later.
It was really not a surprise to us, although our original plan was to plan a bigger wedding, we realized that because of my job running a Navy base, there was no real good time to get married. So we planned to elope. That plan, thankfully failed due to some persistent parents who arranged a real wedding ceremony for us with about a week's notice.
The wedding itself was memorable. I was sick with the flu, and then got mono. Erin had the flu just before we were to fly back to the U.S. and we thought travel was out of the question, let alone getting married. However, we pulled through. Despite being tired from the effects of mono, I managed to blast through all the events. Erin got much better from her flu about a day before we left Japan. So we had a whirlwind trip after our return, from a family banquet to celebrate our wedding in Seattle the day of our arrival back from Japan, to driving for six hours the next day to Corvallis Oregon and a "Engagement Party" with Erin's friends and family... and driving back up to Bellingham the day after. It was quite a trip. It was all worth it.
The wedding was held at Christ the Servant Lutheran Church where my parents are members. That was also memorable. The wedding took place a couple of weeks into Lent, and there was a wooden cross laid out at the front of the sanctuary. Much of the wedding happened at the foot of the cross. The wedding, like our relationship, was also non-traditional. We decided to have a prayer service where Erin and I spent the first half hour of the ceremony in prayer alone. Then when the rest of the family and friends joined in, we had our parents pray for us, and let friends and relatives pray for us too. Then we did the more traditional exchange of vows. Despite the last minute nature of the wedding, it all went well. (Erin found her wedding dress just a couple of hours before the wedding.)
After the wedding, we spent a few days at the Inn at Semiahmoo near Blaine Washington. It was a short honeymoon (we plan to do a real one soon) and then I had to go to New Mexico for a business trip. Then I went back to Japan and Erin joined me a week later (at our home).
