February 11, 1955-OUR WEDDING DAY

Our Wedding Day started out sunny, and cold...I woke up early, as there was so much to do, and 7:30 p.m. , would be there, before I knew it...Mother and Daddy with help had moved all of the Living Room furniture out to the porch, that my Daddy had built on our house and put outside blinds that opened and closed .. the washer at one end of the room, with a table for drinking tea, coffee (kind of like a sun-room), but in the winter got very cold...we had hardwood floors thoughtout the house, with a wool rug on the Living Room floor...well, folding chairs , and if I remember , we borrowed these from the Church..Our Living Room as fairly small, but they got a lot of chairs in that room...now, there was a sort of "wide archway , between the Living Room and the very small dining room (in those days, it was so small, they called it dinette) and with 3 doorways in it, there were barely enought room for a table and chairs, with the kitchen going from the small dining rm. and the doorway to living room, and doorway to the hallway with a bedroom on each end of the hallway, the front bedroom at the time, mine... with a 1 bath in between the 2 bedrooms...(in those days, that was the usual size of a home)..First thing on my list to do was to , wash my hair...which brings me back to another very DUMB thing I did...my hair length was to my shoulders..well, in those days, the style was curly..and we all put "pincurls" in our hair every night to have that curl...no hair spray, no hairdryer, no curling irons ..the only place you found that was at the "Beauty Shops"...well, someone decided that I needed to get a "perm", the day before the wedding, BAD IDEA!, at that time, the shops all had these hugh machines with the curler extentions that they put on your hair, that heated up, and therefore gave you curl, and saved a lot of pincurling at night...It was just as horrible as it sounds, it took hours to get a perm...and to do something like that right before your wedding is CRAZY...I was sorry I even considered it before I got out of that beauty shop, which was a shop miles from our home, as there were no shops near our house, as everyone did their own hair, unless there was a special event going on...well, this WAS special, but I wished a thousand times, I have left well enough alone...well, the operator finally took those things off my head..and combed my hair out...she had cut it, and of course the curl made it look shorter ...it WAS curly, and although it wasn't too short, I thought it looked horrible...thinking back, if I had got the perm another time, it would not have seemed so dramatic, but that seemed like such a terrible thing at that time, to deal with..now. I was not supposed to wash it for a few days, NO WAY, I went home and washed it, and toweled dried it as much as I could..I had to do a lot of combing to finally get it halfway the way I wanted it, then I still pincurled it that night to see what would happen, but the next morning, I decided to wash it again, towel dry it and see..well, I still had to pincurl it ..It seems I spent the whole morning on my hair, and was so scared about it ..I thought Thank God for the hat...even tho, it was a small hat, it covered a lot of "that stuff"....I got stuck in the bathroom, as Irvin and if I remember, Oscar came over later in the morning, I guess to help with the chairs, etc, ..but i could hear them talking , and decided they were at the table, having coffee with my Mother, and Daddy was probably working, as he never took off from work...and he got home, about 3:30 or so...well, I worked with my hair, and cried  ...I couldn't go out of the bathroom, as everyone would see me, as anyone sitting at the table was in full sight of the bathroom door, which I locked..I did everything that I could do in the bathroom, like doing my nails again, still fussing over the hair, finally getting it under a little control, then I cleaned the bathroom up , it was shining, when I finally heard them go into the Living Room...I dashed out to my room , and closed my door, and waited until they laft to come out, which was early afternnon, and still so much to do...well, my Daddy came home, and it seems in no time at all, it was getting time, for me and Mother and Daddy to get dressed, as we were sure that everyone would start coming early, and we were right.. they did...My Daddy and I were to come from my room, down the small hallway,(which could not be seen from the living room)...Irvin and I had picked out our music...it was a LP of Perry Como singing Because..A beautiful song, and one of our favorites, and just right for our Wedding...someone was assigned to stop the record at a certain point,...we started it as it was in my room , just inside of the doorway, when we left my room...My Daddy had tears in his eyes, and had me almost crying when we started down that hallway into the dining room to stand in the wide doorway, which we had put Crepe Paper Wedding Bells over, by the way,..Mother had bought a lace table cloth for the table, which held the Wedding Cake, punch bowl, etc...(on those days, that was what was served; cake, punch, coffee) well, Irvin, his Best Man, Neta, and Frances Gail, (my flowergirl), she was about 6 years old, and I wanted her in my Wedding, so, a flowergirl seemed the best way to do that..She had on a little pink dress, and looked so darling..She walked in front of My Father and I and went and stood by Neta ...The music was stopped, and our Pastor(Brother David Boston) started the cememony....we had a simple ceremony, repeating the vowels, and puting on each others rings, (back then, that was the usual ceremony...) The Pastor reading from the Bible in first Corh....I can remember looking and seeing so many people there, and thinking , that it seemed impossible to get that many people into that small room...We were So Happy!...Mother and some of the Ladies, went into the kitchen, and started getting the coffee, and plates together for the cake, punch, coffee...We cut the cake, and I don't even remember eating any that night.., Irvin had gone and lit our bathroom heater in our apt. , earlier that day, It was a built in heater...which to be was really "uptown", and our apt was toasty warm, when we got there...It was a very cold night, and I put on my short whilte coat when we got ready to leave...this was the same coat I wore on our first date...well, we said "goodbye" and hugged our Parents, (all of Irvin's family were there, even his Father) like I said, it was a full house that night..we left with everyone coming out to wave at us and the boys shouted (did the guy thing)..and we were on our way.....