A request for wedding pictures and the very good reason why we probably can't comply

Oldest Son called his mother last night with what seemed like a simple request.

His fiancee is gathering wedding pictures -- her parents' pictures, her grandparents' -- with the idea of setting up a little display at the reception. Oldest Son asked if Long Suffering Spouse could provide pictures of our wedding. We've got lots of these. But the boy also wants pictures of his grandparents' weddings. Long Suffering Spouse thinks she can supply a picture of her parents' wedding day -- if her mother will let us make a copy. A picture of my parents' wedding, though, will be harder to find.

I've seen at least one picture of my parents' wedding. My father always said he and my mother decided to tie the knot in a hurry -- no six months' notice required in those pre-Vatican II days. At least not for them. A Jesuit friend did the honors on a Saturday; my father always insisted that, right after, he had to cancel a date that had been set for that Sunday.

Can you imagine that phone call?

"I have to break our date today?"

"Why?"

"I got married yesterday."

How does one respond to that?

Anyway, while I know there were some snapshots taken on their wedding day, they weren't prominently displayed in my parents' house. They weren't displayed at all.

I've sent an email to my sister Betty asking if she has picture of my parents' wedding that she can scan and send. But I'm not holding out a great deal of hope.

It's not that my parents had to marry in a hurry; if you must know, I was born a few months before their second anniversary. It's just that, one day, they simply decided it was time to cast their lot together.

And they did.

'Til death did them part.

Just the way they write about it in books. (Except for the part about the His and Her Colon Cancer that claimed them. They hardly ever mention that kind of thing in the classic romances. But they faced that together, too.)

My parents always said that a wedding is one day; a marriage is a lifetime. The wedding day was just another day and the record of that day blended in and was ultimately lost in the record of their lives together.

I think that's a pretty good reason for not being able to come up with my parents' wedding picture. I wonder if Oldest Son and his fiancee will understand.