Choosing the Day

When we last left off, and I apologize for the delay but the boys and I have just returned from a trek to the Great White North to visit the West-Coast portion of our family, I’d just proposed to The Canadian Gal.

And she’d laughed.

Not one to be put off by women laughing at me I pushed on.

“Are you laughing at me?” I said with what might have been mock incredulousness (and there’s no way to know as I refuse to look up the definition for incredulous).

“Are you serious?” she asked.

There was a little more back-and-forth banter during which I’m sure “Yes” was murmured at least once. (There’s really no other way to explain the fact we’re now married. And I have a definite memory of hearing the six-year-old squeal with delight.) 

I called my mother to tell her the news and without missing a beat she said, “I want to come!” This surprised me and caused me a bit of concern. I was surprised as I find it hard to believe anybody ever wants to go to a wedding. I was concerned as the folks like more than 2500 miles away from Vancouver and, you know, it’s sort of inconvenient.

The Canadian Gal and I had discussed a couple of dates I already had plane tickets for – one in late June and another in mid-July. As luck would have it the June date had been set up as my parents were going to be getting off a cruise ship in Vancouver then; they were returning from an Alaskan cruise to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. This made the June date very appealing.

Another reason June seemed like the best choice (past I couldn’t wait) is that the July date was when the boys and I had planned to go up for vacation. The Canadian and I were afraid if we pushed things back that far it would give us, and interested parties, too much time to plan. There was also the fear that… wait, let me do a dramatic re-enactment of a web chat we had going.

The Canadian Gal and I were on webcams and her phone rang. It was her sister calling to congratulate her. During the course of their conversation the sister asked how we chose the date.

“We’d considered July,” she said, “but The American and his boys are coming up then for vacation. We’re afraid if we have it then the wedding might overshadow vacation plans and there might be a lot of extra people here. It’s the first time all the kids will be together and we want it to be just the 10 of us.”

And then she laughed at how it sounded. “That’s right. Just the ten of us!”

I wasn’t worried. It wasn’t maniacal laughing or evil-genius laughing. Just good, old-fashioned happy laughing with a bit of can you believe how that sounds? thrown in.