Marriage Meme

Recently I was tagged by the lovely café johnsonia to participate in a marriage meme. As you know, I can’t resist a good meme, so here it goes:

Where did you meet your husband?

BYU 122nd ward, comprised of one-half of Centennial Apartments. And, you guessed it, twice we served together as counterparts in various church auxiliaries. But we didn’t really want to have anything to do with one another. Does it get any more cliché than that?

What was the first thing you said to your husband?

I truly have no idea. But according to him it was the third week in April, 1983. I was sitting on the floor in a lower floor apartment on the outside of the complex, at the home of Jay Jorgensen, whose little sister Janelle was my roommate. Shane came over to tell Jay’s apartment about an upcoming softball game. We all exchanged casual “Hi’s” and that was it. He doesn’t believe me, but as he was recounting the details it did all come back to me.

What I remember best was that 4th of July. We had volunteered to save a few blankets for the fireworks display (it was so cool–they used to sync the fireworks with music on a local radio station) at Kiwanis Park. We had a couple of hours to kill, so we talked about where we were from and got to know each other a bit. I mentioned how much I missed our 1/2-acre family garden and my particular love of fresh beets.

A short time later Shane showed up at my door with a bag full of fresh beets. Maybe I’m too easy, but he pretty much guaranteed himself at least a first date with that thoughtful act.

Where was the first kiss? First date?

(Interesting they are in that order, no?) We were friends for such a long time before we ever thought about dating…

What happened was this: As is common around BYU during the holidays, the place was deserted. Only Shane worked retail and my family had moved to Utah by then, so we were still around. He and his roommate and I and one other girl ended up going to a dance together on New Year’s Eve. We traded dances back and forth all night till the end of the evening, when I found myself dancing more and more with Shane.

Only that wasn’t really a date. That was just when we started to become interested. We eventually had the discussion over whether or not we wanted to complicate a great friendship by dating one another. The answer was unanimous.

Later I found myself working the afternoon shift at the BYU Bookstore when I received the first of many “Roses are red, violets are blue…” poems. This one read “Roses are red, violets are blue, I would die for a date with you.”

We went to a BYU basketball game. But I was cool with that. Just don’t ask me if we won or lost. I’ll bet Shane could tell you thought. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s the one with the mind for details.

The first kiss was in my apartment, which, miraculously was free of the usual scattering of roommates.

Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement?

Here is where the cliché ends. We dated for three years–breaking up a few times in between–until, at the ancient age of 23, I went on a mission. He wrote faithfully the entire 18 months and upon my return we didn’t really want to have anything to do with one another.

That lasted for about 48 hours, but during that 48 hours we both ended up at our respective family reunions only to practially be thrown out for coming alone. I had been gone 18 months and returned to hear only, “Where’s Shane?” “Where’s Shane?” He went to his only to have the family pound their fists on the table and chant, “We want Dalene! We want Dalene!”

Needless to say we saw the writing on the wall and got together shortly after.

Where did you get engaged?

Stewart Falls. He was up at the top and I was at the bottom, when he sent me to get something. In it was a green ring box with another of his famous “Roses are Red” poems, this one asking me to marry him. He made me shout “Yes!” at the top of my lungs. I guess he wanted to make sure I was sure.

Where did you get married?

In the Manti LDS temple, the tower room. We went the entire way up the spiral staircase with the bishop from our ward behind me whispering in my ear, “It’s not too late to back out. It’s not too late to back out.” Almost 20 years later, you can see I didn’t intend to back out.

How did the reception go?

It was nice. I am not really into that kind of thing, so aside from insisting we not have a huge line (I had my brother stand in for my dad and and had my only sister and his baby sister as bridesmaids) and just a simple white cake it really didn’t matter to me. It was just before Christmas, so our colors were black and white with a touch of red. At that point in history black and white we not at all considered traditional wedding colors, so our families were a bit nervous. But it looked great. Our gifts were placed underneath a flocked Christmas tree with dotted with black and red decorations.

One funny thing happened, however. In a move that to this day I saw as wise beyond our years, we planned the reception for the week after the wedding. One sweet gentleman came twice. The evening of our wedding (when he found a gym full of sweaty boys playing basketball) and then again the next week.

How was the honeymoon?

Short, sweet and simple. I still had finals starting early the next week, so we just went up to Salt Lake City for a couple of days. (I did pack along my books just in case I needed to study. But of course I never opened my backpack.)

I still managed to pull straight A’s that semester.

But I do have to add this: When I realized how close it was to our upcoming 20th anniversary, I decided to consider our trip to Finland last fall a perfect second honeymoon. It was worth waiting for.