Wedding Bells!!

Somehow among the 1,000 slides were the nearly sum total of wedding photos that we have.  You've seen some of them before.  And some not.

 

The quality is uneven, but they capture the event!

 

  You know, I still have that green Tupperware lettuce keeper!

The man in the foreground is a very young Joe Jensen!!

 

Maybe Mom or Donna or Joan recognizes some of these folks.  Jim is hugging their Aunt Marjorie!!

 

The "Wedding Party!!"

 

The story was not told to me for many years - but apparently at the reception, Charlie went around with a jar, collecting for the newlyweds.  My dad confiscated it from them - they were planning on it for themselves!!  They only got about $15 though - maybe that helped defray the costs!!

As candid as you can get here!!

 

I think that's Frances in the cream suit.

 

Remember the Merrills??

 

Ah, pretty in pink!!

 

Back in the "cake and punch" days!!

 

This could be a pretty cool shot if it wasn't blurry.

Oh well, the years have treated us well, even if we didn't have glossy, professional photos!!

A little time travel!

On our recent road trip, we hooked up with Joy and her husband Dan.  Joy and I have been friends since our teen years - and we were roommates in college - so it was fun to re-connect in person after a few years of not seeing each other.

She recently sent me these photos - from a bridal shower she gave me in 1967.  Many of the details - it was held in the apartment I shared with Alice and my other roommates - are somewhat "telling."

For starters, all the wall decor really "brings it all back!"  College students all think they have discovered art and celebrity.  And Moyne wearing a fur hat - we were young and silly and given to clowning.  And the short hair - definitely the 60's.  

The two scrapbooks we are holding in the top photo are the "souvenirs" from the shower.  The guests were asked to cut photos and word strips from magazines and predict life for Harry and Barbara.  I still have it of course - a true "blast from the past."

I hadn't seen these photos in many years - maybe I haven't seen them since they were taken!!  Time flies, life happens, we march ahead into the future.

But looking back is fun.

Be Mine Valentine!!

Pretty sure I post this every year - probably because I don't have any other "Valentine pictures" to post.

This is February 1968.  I went to Woolworths and took my photo in the machine - then posted the strips on pink construction paper - very old school.

Harry and I do not make a very big deal out of Valentine's Day - I used to make cookies and get gifts for the children.  I still send cards to the grandkids.  And this year I went hog-wild and got heart shaped lollypops for my students.

They won't know what to do with themselves!!

Thougts on a wedding day

Twenty-one years ago today Bonny and Bruce were married in the Los Angeles Temple. Their courtship and engagement had caught Harry and me somewhat unawares. The day they came down the hall dressed in thrift store wedding finery and carrying a sign that they were engaged took us by surprise. Harry came into the kitchen and said, "I'm not sure I'm ready for this." (But then I recalled Bonny's middle school promotion dance - he hadn't been ready then either to see how many boys wanted Bonny's attention!!)

That morning, early, Helen called with the news that Pop was having a very bad day already - and so they would not be at the wedding. My parents were on a temple mission in Colorado, so they would not be there. It cast a bit of a pall on things, but not for long. We were caught up in all the flurry and hustle and bustle of "getting to the church on time" and soon found ourselves hurrying in.

The wedding was beautiful. Many friends and family members were there in the temple and outside the temple too. We went to Orange County for a wedding brunch that Jinny hosted. It was great - lots of good food and good conversation.

Bonny and Bruce soon left for their honeymoon at Hotel Del Coronado - when I saw them put a cooler in the back of Bruce's old Mercedes - they were bringing their own food - Hotel Del was not cheap - I thought, "These guys know how to have a great life!"

As we drove home, a day that had started out clear and sunny became gray and foggy. Harry and I were a bit introspective, thinking about our parents not being there with us for this special time. Later my mom called and said that she felt that she had been more "present" for Bonny's wedding than if she had been there. She said all day long, as the brides came into the Denver Temple, she thought, "Someone is taking care of Bonny today, just like I am taking care of this young woman." And she concluded by saying that she had felt close to Bonny all day long.

I was glad there was no reception that night. Glad that we had a week more to prepare for that aspect of the wedding festivities. Bonny and Bruce had been pretty definite about what they did and did not want, but I was hoping that after the wedding itself, they wouldn't really care so much about those details. We did all roll up our collective sleeves and get to work however!

Pop perked up and was able to attend the reception a week later. Christmas happened in spite of Hannah's worries that somehow we'd missed it. Noah got over being miffed that the "party" we'd talked about so long was a dinner with salad and soup. And Bonny and Bruce returned from their honeymoon declaring that everything was just perfect for the reception.

Time always puts a better perspective on things.

Happy Anniversary to a couple of our favorite people!!

A Prelude to Valentine's Day!

This is the Y Center. It will always be the Y Center to me - I'm not sure why they insisted on calling it the Wilkinson Center - the Y Center sounds so much more collegiate!! But they didn't ask me!!

The way it looked then!

But I digress - as I am wont to do on occasion!! I came across this dedicatory program for the Y Center - April 3, 1965 - and thought about how Harry and I met at the Y Center Grand Opening in September of 1964.

It's a bit odd to think that when I started at BYU in 1963, the Y Center was under construction. We used to have a BYU Bookstore in the basement of the then Joseph Smith Building - a building which has been replaced, although it's still called the Joseph Smith Building. The Cougareat was in the basement there too. I remember going down there a time or two, but it wasn't really a campus hub or anything. Heaps 'O Pizza was more of a hub than any building on campus! (I think Heaps is now the Brick Oven.)

Dances were held every Saturday night at Cannon Center - and we went every Saturday night too - that's where I first heard the Beatles in fact!!

Joy and I in our dorm room with our favorite mannequin.

Back to the Y Center Grand Opening though. We all went on Friday night for the weekend event. Harry - whom I didn't know at the time - came up and asked me to dance. The now immortalized dialogue went something like this: "Hey, we match. We should dance." (I was wearing a red sweater and Harry had on a burgundy blazer!) He was cute and so I said yes and we danced a couple of times. I didn't even remember his name although I thought he was very personable.

Next night the big doings were at the Y Center, not Cannon Center, so we all headed there. I saw Harry again and he came up like we were old friends and asked me to dance. I remembered him, but not his name!! I coyly pulled his ID card from his pocket and looked at it - but saw "Harry" and thought, "No young person is named Harry!" (I had a grandpa and an uncle named Harry!)


Harry's mission program photo

But then everyone who walked by said, "Hi Harry," or "How ya doin' Harry," so I figured that was his name!! After dancing for awhile, he suggested we go to the new snack bar for something to eat. We were sitting there and my cousin Pat walked by and said, "Hi Harry, what are you doing here?" Then she saw me and said, "Hi Barbara, how do you know this guy?"

Turned out Harry had been the home teaching (then called ward teaching) companion to my cousin Pat and her family in Covina. It is indeed a small world. When I saw my cousin later at my Uncle George's funeral in SLC, she said she was surprised and didn't know Harry was at BYU.

Later it turned out that Harry and I had an Astronomy class together, and we passed each other every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as he was leaving his French class and I was heading to my English class. Also turned out that he had been at BYU the Spring semester before and had observed me in my French lab all semester!! I was always goofing around with my good friend Linda Bang, so I had not observed him at all. Since he married me, I guess the impression wasn't too negative!

Ah, young love!!

And a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet now wouldn't it? But I'm still going to say that we met at the Y Center!

"Still the one!!"

What a difference 43 years makes!

At least neither one of us is bald!