It’s NaBloPoMo Day 15!
Today’s confession: Nine years ago today we eloped. Kinda.
Today is our 9th Wedding Anniversary. We’ve lived together almost 13 years! It’s amazing how quickly the time flies by when you’re having fun. I’m so thankful to look back over the last decade-plus and see such happy times. There have been some struggles here or there, but at the end of the day, every day for almost 13 years, we’ve ended the day on the same side.
We were just as committed to each other the day we moved in together as the day we got married, so that’s why I always honor the total time together.
In the state of Colorado, you are allowed to officiate the ceremony yourself, and that’s just what we did. By the time my husband officially proposed, we’d lived together almost 4 years.
Why wait so long? Why not?
We weren’t in any hurry.
I’m a perfectionist, but I’m not a traditionalist. Neither is my husband, so we make the perfect pair! By the time we decided to tie the knot, we’d been in 10 weddings. We were all traditional-wedding’d out! We are firm believers in doing what is best for you. All those weddings were awesome for the people who wanted that. We didn’t. It isn’t who we are.
Our new lives and home were in Colorado, and the thought of going back to the Midwest for a traditional wedding ceremony just wasn’t who we were.
We didn’t want to waste money on a big to-do, knowing that it wasn’t what we wanted.
He proposed at the end of September, and we set a date in Mid-November to make things official. I’ve always had an affinity for 11:11, so we wanted to get married that day. Unfortunately, the 11th is Veteran’s Day, so the courthouse wouldn’t be open. The next logical day was the 15th, so we took it. Plus, getting married in 2000 had its advantages. The last two digits of the year are how many years we’ve been married. Simple!
Why so quickly? Why not?
We put the plans into motion. We ordered announcements with a gorgeous mountain cut-out scene on them. We were going to be married at the foot of the rockies in a local courthouse. We loved the view from there.
Not everyone would be able to make it out here, so rather than hurt some feelings, we risked hurting everyone’s feelings equally. No one was invited. That way, everyone was equally perturbed.
Many of our out-of-state friends would be traveling back to the Midwest to visit relatives (just like we did year after year) over the Christmas Holiday, so we planned a Reception back there for friends and relatives.
So, on Wednesday, November 15, 2000 at around 10am, we exchanged our own vows in our apartment. We exchanged rings that symbolized what we already knew and had already been living. We drove to the courthouse and signed a paper. It was an elopement without all the secrecy. The ladies behind the desk cheered and then got teary. We did the same.
We hopped a plane and flew to Vegas to party for a week. A month later, during our Holiday Visit back to the Midwest, we celebrated with friends and relatives.
It was simple. It was practical. It worked out perfectly. It was exactly how we wanted it. I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Just looking at the site online makes me want to lick my monitor, so I’m afraid of what the clerks would do to me if I was left alone in the room with all of the actual gift baskets. Those places have video cameras. Youtube is an icon. Claire wouldn’t want to go anywhere in public with me again. 
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