When we met, it literally was love at first kiss. I had a party on New Year's Eve like I always did. Steve came and after midnight we 'happened' to meet under the mistletoe. Like they say in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle", it was MAGIC. Three weeks later he told me he loved me, and one week after that, I responded with the same.
Four months later in April, a friend had a dream and told us that we needed to make a permanent commitment or something terrible would happen. So we talked. Steve had no qualms about us getting married - he knew we would - one day, without question. Since our impending marriage was already decided, we talked about what the wedding and honeymoon would be like.
Steve said he didn't know what the wedding would be like, but he knew all about the honeymoon. I didn't know about the honeymoon, but I knew about the wedding. I told Steve we'd have to have a huge party or our friends would never forgive us - that or we'd have to elope - something like go to Vegas and get married. Then we said if we went to Vegas, we'd get married by Elvis - because if you're going to go to Vegas, then you might as well get married by Elvis. All through the 10 years of our marriage we talked about going to Vegas and getting married by Elvis. So, we decided we do that one day for an anniversary.
Time warp forward to our 10th anniversary. We decided we had better get planning to go to Vegas for our 10th anniversary. We did some research, found a chapel that had a 'good' Elvis reputation, and booked our package. The package with the showgirls and the pink cadillac was a bit over our budget, so we just opted for the 'Elvis Special'.
We spent a week in Vegas and just did everything. We had so much fun. The day of the wedding came and it was just like our first wedding day - we really did it up. Steve rented a tux. I had found a beautiful navy blue dress with rhinestones and got my hair done in the hotel salon. We looked stunning. The topper was that we were wearing blue suede shoes. We bought them at home and since mine were so plain, I dolled them up with glue on craft rhinestones and ribbon to hide the white part of the tennis shoes. They were a hoot.
When the limo picked us up, the limo driver Tammi really gushed over us. The people at the chapel were so nice and they loved the blue suede shoes - I don't think anyone had done that before!
'Elvis' was the nicest guy, he kept telling me how beautiful I was, and how he could see how much in love Steve and I were even after 10 years. Our wedding was broadcast on the internet so our friends were there with us in spirit and we just went with it. Steve was as nervous as the day we got married!
The chapel photographer took photos afterwards and then they ushered us outside for a photo by the limo - our name was on the marquee in lights! Wow!
Once more back inside to say thank you again to everyone, I wish we could have stayed longer, they were all so nice, but we had dinner reservations at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere hotel - the one that is really high up and revolves. It was wonderful. We capped off the night with a seats at Penn and Teller.
Our good luck omen came on the way back to the hotel. We took the monorail back to the hotel and met a lovely older couple on the train. They noticed that we were all dressed up and asked what the occasion was. We told them about our night and how much fun it was to get married by Elvis. Then they told us that they were in Las Vegas celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They were from New Jersey, had celebrated there with their kids, but came to Vegas to celebrate on their own. We told them that they should get married by Elvis - that everyone should at least once in their life! When we got off the train and headed in our separate ways, they told us that they wished us many happy years and hoped we'd be as happy as they've been. I reminded them to come back and get married by Elvis!
