February 19, 1977

    As I recall, on Saturday, February 19, 1977 Philadelphia was still under about a foot of snow and hadn't seen the sun in weeks.
    But for me everything was coming up daisies that day:

The cake my mother had made and a friend of hers had decorated,

...The flowers that my sister Romaine had run out to the A&P and bought that morning then tied up with a ribbon into a bouquet,

   ... Tom's boutineer,

...And the altar flowers  ('way in the background) I was slightly ticked over the price of, wedding altar flowers being no less ridiculously expensive back then than they are now.

    I also recall being slightly ticked that, though I wanted a guitar wedding, which I had:

...Our wonderful singer-guitarist, Peggy.  We walked down the ailse to "The Wedding Song" by Paul Stookey.

   ...Anyway, we  were still required to  pay the frumpy old church organist, who we didn't want and didn't have.
    But that was infinitesimally small stuff, forgotten by the actual day of the wedding.
    And I recall that on that day the sun came out for the first time in weeks.  I considered it a good omen.  And so, though it was only about 30 degrees outside, I got a bee in my bonnet and decided that because the sun was shining it would be wonderful if the wedding party walked the quarter mile from my parents' house to the church.
    Believe me, I'd never do or require another human being to do such a thing now.

Our wedding party, Tom's friend Mike and my sister Romaine, were exceptionally good sports about it, though.

Maybe it was really that I wanted the opportunity to strut around the neighborhood in my grandmother's fur cuffed and collared coat.

   

    In any case, I guess none of us were any the worse for wear for our slog through the snow.

Least of all Tom and me, here in our official wedding picture, taken in my parents' living room by our photographer, my sister-in-law Debbie's co-worker's nephew, who gave us a very good deal.

   Some us likewise decided to walk from my parents' house, where everyone was invited to chill between the wedding and the reception, to the reception, which was held in the basement of Pavio's Italian Restaurant, which was at the end of the block from my parent's house:

By the time this photo was taken from in front of my parent's house Pavio's Restaurant had expanded to Pavio's Plaza.

  I always thought mine was the best wedding that had ever been:  best ceremony, best reception hall, best food, best band (that was back when weddings still had bands), best time ever,

   
 
   ... Until I attended four more weddings that  were somehow every bit as superlatively wonderful as my own was:

  
I guess nothing colors your world like love.