Happy Anniversary

Today is Grandma and Grandpa's 63rd wedding anniversary.

Here is Grandma's story about their wedding day:
We were married on Friday, April 18, 1847 at about 4 pm in our living room at mother’s home. The wedding was held in the afternoon so Gordon could attend his morning classes at USC. We were married in April because we were able to find a place to rent (it was difficult to find a place to live at the end of the war). My mother’s sister, MaRee came down earlier to help my mother get ready for our wedding. We bought a beautiful wedding cake, (a white cake) at the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax near Wilshire in Westwood, Los Angeles. (As of a couple of years ago, there is still a bakery at the same location.) Marion Lewis, mother’s bridge friend, arranged the wedding flowers. There were a couple of bouquet arrangements for a little stand that we put in front of the hearth where we knelt for the wedding. There was a bouquet for Elizabeth Ann (my maid of honor) and boutonnieres for Gordon and his best man, Don Hughes. Gordon and I went into LA about a week before the wedding to buy wedding bands. We bought simple gold bands. My mother was a little disappointed that it was so plain but I still wear it today. (The only time I took it off was when I had surgery a few years ago and they made me remove it - Joanne wore it carefully for me and put it back on my finger as soon as I was awake. And Gordon's ring is at the bottom of Lake Folsom! He had lost weight and it fell off as he was throwing ski lines.)
I wore a gray suit with a wonderful straw hat with small colored flowers on it, black gloves and a purse and black shoes. I wore an orchid on my suit. Aunt Winnie, Aunt Fenya (Gordon’s maternal aunts) and Uncle Whitney went in together and purchase a Navy blue suit for Gordon to wear. He wore a white shirt and tie.
Orson Haney, our stake patriarch officiated at our wedding. I had met him a few months earlier when I received my patriarchal blessing. Gordon had a friend who sang at the wedding (of course he asked to be paid for his singing). Family who attended included Gordon’s Aunt Winnie, Aunt Fenya and Uncle Whitney, (maternal aunts) and Uncle Rielly and Aunt Claudia (paternal uncle). Diltz and Murtel, Gordon’s parents lived in Kansas and did not attend. They had come out to visit earlier in the year. My mother, Bessie Harmon and her sister, MaRee attended along with my brother, G.A. and sister, Elizabeth Ann. Dr. Newman was there as well as my friend Betty with her date, Joe. I had met Betty in a volleyball class at UCLA. Of interest is that Betty and Joe started talking more seriously about their relationship on the way home from our wedding and were eventually married! Sue Bennett and Patty Baldwin, two of my friends, were also invited but I don’t remember if they were able to make it.
We had a small reception after the wedding. I remember having punch in Mother’s cut glass punch bowl, the lovely wedding cake, and nuts and mints. Ada Hanley, who was the cosmetic buyer at Saks Fifth Ave. where I worked, and Mrs. Leavitt a sales lady there, came for the reception. I did not have a bouquet to toss. When I went to get my hat to leave, there was GA with Dr. Newman looking at the guns GA had brought home from the war in Germany. Mother let us take her 1936 Chevrolet on our honeymoon. We had dinner on the way to San Bernardino (a little restaurant along the way), and spent the night in San Bernardino and then the next day went up to Lake Arrowhead where we had first met. Gordon took Monday off from school and we returned to our new apartment on Monday. Soon after that we got word that the whole building was going to be moved and we would have to move. But that’s another story!