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| My Princess |
This weekend we celebrate our wedding anniversary.. We have enjoyed 22 years of married life and I think part of the reason for our success is that we got married TWICE.. Yes you read that correctly we had two wedding ceremonies.
On the 23rd of May 1992, Joanne and I married in a civil ceremony at our local chapel in Oldham. It was a regular wedding, we had a best man, bridesmaids a walk up the isle and a reception in the church hall. It was a wonderful day, with all our family and friends around us
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a problem with a regular church wedding, even our own. Every wedding service I have been too included the phrase "For the period of this mortal life" or "Til death do us part" Think about that for a minute.
We were and are, madly and passionately in love, we didn't want a built in cancellation to our commitment. We believe in a life after death, but as the song by Queen asks "Who wants to live forever, if love must die"
Fortunately death, however far away it may seem, does not have to be an end. There is a place you can go to be sealed for "Time and all Eternity" Love does not have to die, we can be families forever.
That place is a Temple.
In our case, in 1992 the only temple in the UK was in London and it was closed for an extended period to be refurbished. We didn't want to wait for its opening, so as part of our wedding plans we had organised to have our honeymoon in Franfurt Germany, where the next nearest Temple could be found.
(There is now a second UK temple in Preston)
After our civil Wedding on the Saturday we went home to the house we had bought in Ashton-under-Lyne. Then on the Saturday we drove to London, stayed over night and took a flight to Germany.
On the 26th of May 1992 we entered the Frankfurt Temple and in a room not dissimilar to the one below we knelt facing each other at the alter and were married a second time, by someone holding the authority to seal us together for Eternity.
It was a complete contrast to our civil wedding, we traveled to Germany without our family,
there were no bridesmaids or receptions, just us, a couple of witnesses and our beliefs.
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| Outside the Frankfurt Temple |
Of course being sealed doesn't mean you face no problems, you still have to work at a relationship, you still have trials. However I think having a LONG term ETERNAL plan makes your realise what matters most and gives you a different perspective and perhaps a greater desire to make it work.
Do I love Joanne as much as I did, no.. I love her much more.
