Yeah, you read that right. We took ourselves out to Vegas, baby!
After 13 years, we wanted to use our free trip to Las Vegas, Nevada to spend our anniversary having a fun time together.
Plans? Originally, we just wanted to go, play the slots, and go to a museum or two. However, someone mentioned getting married by Elvis! What a thought! Especially because we got married at the courthouse. Our wedding wasn’t fancy, we dressed up in red, black, and white, had a few family members, and a small reception at his Ama’s house (mother-in-law). I wouldn’t change a thing. I absolutely loved our tiny wedding and every single thing about it.
Shortly after we got serious, he wanted me to ask Ama if he could move in with me. Yeah, yeah, insert momma’s boy jokes here. Well, you see, Ama, back then at least, was very old school. That was not going to happen. Marriage before living together. This derailed my plans.
I had a set 5-year plan after many, many failed relationships. 1 year of dating, 2 years of living together, 2 years engaged, then married. Rational and logical. It gives us time to get to really see if it was serious. We were 6 months in when we got serious and thinking about him moving in. He would have moved in shortly after, within a few months, which would have followed my plan close enough.
I had been at a point where I could not breathe when this man was not around me. I was obsessed with his presence, and he was absolutely my human. I knew it. Having him move in was the best solution. I had a nice one-bedroom apartment where we could both pay for rent reasonably and be able to really see if we meshed well enough to live together for the rest of our lives.
Living with me was something I wasn’t originally going to budge on. I WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE TOLERABLE. My home is my safe space. I had dealt with roommates who were intolerable and roommates who were easy as fuck to live with. I needed to be sure I could be around this human when I needed to decompress and could share my private life with them.
Being a momma’s boy, this child was not about to go against his mother. Which I knew and realized there was no point of even arguing with him. Boy, that was a mistake. He knows, don’t worry. I’ve told him many times I wish he had lived on his own or with me first before we got married because Ama did not prepare her boys for living as adults.
Tell me why she trimmed their toenails until adulthood. Yeah, I’m airing out that skeleton.
Jamison didn’t know, or feigned ignorance, about how to use a washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, vacuum, etc. He had never honestly taken care of himself or a home. I, on the other hand, was out of my parents’ house, despite being funded by them, at 18. I had lived in a dorm with other people for a year, lived in my own apartment for a year, lived in my own RV for a year-ish. I had also had chores my entire life along with helping Cobra clean her house on a regular basis. I knew how to adult pretty well.
All that to say, we decided that I wasn’t going to get my 5-year plan, so we were going to get married the next year while he half lived with me, even though he ‘wasn’t allowed’ to stay the night with me.
When we first got engaged, we planned on a June wedding on the beach. I found the perfect beachy dress and bought it. I went dress shopping alone but couldn’t leave without that dress.
I was wedding planning and had been getting my ducks in a row. My anxiety had other plans. Come that autumn, I was at a point that I just couldn’t be without him. I had been dealing with so many health issues and I just couldn’t take it anymore. We had a long discussion about this, honestly it was me saying “I can’t do this, we need to speed this along here, please, and thank you.”
We decided to have a December wedding. My lease would be up, my health insurance from my parents would be up before they renewed, I would be getting health insurance through my job at that point. Things just lined up for December.
That beautiful dress, not a courthouse wedding dress. Trust me. That was a beach wedding dress. Fun story, another woman found my listing of it on FB marketplace and bought it from me for her beach wedding. We ended up being invited to their wedding after I explained the story of the dress. No one wants a failed wedding dress so I made sure to explain I just didn’t wear it to the courthouse but was absolutely ecstatic that it would finally be in the beach wedding it deserved. She looked absolutely stunning and wore the dress perfectly, it was exactly her size, no altering needed. I was so thankful that dress finally got to be worn in a beautiful beach wedding.
Anyways. We got fancied up, because bougee is my middle name, sometimes. Wore our fancy clothes. Another side note, I can still fit into my wedding dress despite not being that size anymore. We had our beautiful courthouse wedding and swore we would have our actual wedding as a vow renewal one day.
December 8th was that day. We found ourselves at the Lucky Little Wedding Chapel, no not Elvis, but more wedding day like, renewing our vows for our 13th year together. We dressed in our fancy clothes, our wedding colors of red, black, and white. We stared into each others eyes and vowed again that this was still forever. It was absolutely beautiful.
No one there but us, our officiant, and our photographer. Just Jamison and I declaring our love for each other. I still can’t believe it happened. I am so floored with the photographs that we got as well. I’ve edited them so I can share them with you without being the true photographs, although the ones without our faces are the actual photos (not sure which ones I’m uploading).
We spent our time going to Omega Mart at Area 15, the Mob Museum, World of Illumination Holiday Drive Through, and gambling. It was by far the most magical couple’s experience we’ve had to date.
I’m so grateful to have such an amazing man like Jamison here by my side through it all. I’m including the vows I recited during the renewal. Don’t judge, it’s important that I spoke a bit about the bad that happened. Without the bad stuff we wouldn’t be us today. We spent a lot of years in turmoil, and the renewal is our sort of push into our next stage of our marriage. A stage of being a team, being a couple on the same side, and being here with each other fully and transparently.
“Jamison,
“The last 13 years married to you have been the most beautiful years of my
life. We spent many of those years arguing, unable to see eye to eye, and pitting ourselves against each other. We used that time feeling angry and upset with each other. But despite every argument, we always came back together. We apologized, we cried, we hugged, we kissed. We always said, “I love you”. We sat together and we worked it out.
“No matter what our stance was, we made our way back together like magnets, unable to stay apart, drawn together with an undeniable force. We spent so long learning to fight the problem instead of each other, yet I would not change a single moment of any of it. Not a single moment of anger or upset, not a single argument. I am thankful for it. I am thankful we learned to grow; we learned to love harder, and we learned to lean towards each other sooner and sooner each time. We continued to persevere and push further into our love because we knew that walking away was never an option. We are meant to be together.
“Now, 13 years into love and devotion, 3 kids, 2 cats, 2 stable jobs, a home of our own, and even a couple of secrets meant just for you and me, we are more evolved and more in love than I ever thought we could be. Our bond is unbreakable. We have proved to each other that no matter the circumstance, no matter the situation, and no matter the force attempting to drive us apart, we will always hold steady together.
“We will always be by each other’s side, and we will always fight the problem as a
team, no longer fighting each other, unless I just need to bicker with you to get it
out of my system. We are one in every sense, and our marriage has proved itself to
be a sacred vow that cannot be undone. We are meant for one another. Thirteen
years or thirteen millennia, we will be together for eternity. Nothing can undo us.
“No cap.”
Traumatized Viridimere 