PLANNING THE WEDDING chapter 87

We had talked often about the wedding and several plans were already made. The invitations had been ordered and Rev. Rose was coming to officiate. We also asked the present pastor at Red Deer Alliance to assist and his wife was to be the organist. Of course, it was going to be at Red Deer Alliance Church with the reception in the basement. The reception would be a tight squeeze, but it would work.

Money was very tight so we geared up to do all we could to keep the costs down. Della’s mom was making the wedding cake – one of them. Who ever heard of fruitcake being used as a wedding cake? I hated fruitcake. I knew it was traditional, but the thought gagged me. I hated to be rude and did make my comments in a gentler manner than I am currently writing. We also had a white cake. I guess that wasn’t unheard of.

We also went shopping for items for our gift registry. Picking china was not an American custom, but I loved the idea. It fit Della perfectly. I don’t know if she knew it yet, but she clearly had the gift of hospitality and it was often at work in our home. We also talked about furniture since the only thing we owned was a teak cabinet radio and record player. Della bought it with her job money. At the moment we didn’t know where we be going or where we would live. That put several things on hold.

This was my first commissioned
colored pencil drawing. Della
wanted a place setting of her china.

We picked Wild Alberta Rose, a Royal Albert pattern, for our china. 1966 was the 100^th anniversary of Alberta and it was the provincial flower. I remember that a cup and saucer was $4:99 at Eaton’s. The Bay didn’t have the Te Royal Albert pattern yet.  I know we picked a few others things, but I don’t know what they were.

I stayed in the upstairs bedroom at Della’s moms until we found our first apartment. It was a small fully furnished basement of a house in west Red Deer. It had the worst bed possible. A lumpy mattress lying on very saggy springs. The kitchen was so tiny you had to get up from the table to open the fridge door. You had to laugh. But it was going to be our starting point.

Anna Jean and Kathy

We went to a church wide couple’s shower. Never heard of that before either. Anna Jean Gifford and Kathy Smith were our hostesses. Several strange practices were coming up everywhere. We played several traditional “shower” games. There was a contest of some sort where people were dressed in newspaper held together with pins and tape. Both men and women were decorated. One man was  Jean and another was myself. That was to be expected I guess. It was all very weird, but funny. Our love story was presented in a scrapbook (two pages below) and several word games. Ron and Joan sang and there were plenty of gifts, mostly kitchen related items. We would have things to cook and eat on.I just remember a lot of people being there.

Opening the many gifts

Ron and Joan singing, Ethel at the
piano and Anna Jean in front

It seems to be that Della was the first to be married in a host of very close friends, many who would marry the following year. She was also a very special girl in that church. I was stealing their pride and joy. It felt like the whole church turned out to everything that had anything to do with out wedding. Della was clearly the star.

There was a tradition of playing tricks on the bride and groom on the wedding night and we had heard a rumor that something might be done to my car so it would not run. To avoid this potential problem, we walked the neighborhood looking for a garage we might rent for a week. We found on about half a block from Mom’s house. An older couple that gave us the use of their garage for a week after hearing our story owned it. It was inconvenient, but it beat no having a car for our honeymoon.

There were other rumors as to what might happen and we did everything we could to avert what we suspected. When we learned the source of these plans, we were surprised. The CBC president’s oldest son was behind most of this. This was somewhat surprising, as we barely knew him and he were not invited to the wedding. Somehow we doubted he would show, but could not take the chance.

Everything was ready at thins point. The real work began a couple days before the wedding. We had plans to decorate the reception and church ourselves with hand made items.

Thank you for coming and thank you for the gift.
Della insisted we greet every guest. Here we are talking to Mrs. Goetz.
This must have been my favorite sweater. I'm wearing it in nearly every photo.