Our Wedding 3 November 1984

Wedding Bells 1984
 

You have read how Suzanne and I finally got together to start dating and how Papa proposed.  Now read about our wedding day.

We were married 3 November 1984, at 4:00 PM, at Boulevard Baptist Church. Suzanne and I had planned on a day in September (13^th) and to have it at Flat Rock Baptist Church. 

The reason the date changed is, basically, Suzanne and I got very little say in our wedding. My mother suggested that we talk to Mrs. Sharpe in Columbia about the wedding because she was a wedding professional.

Mrs. Sharpe suggested that it be on a day when neither Clemson nor Carolina had home football games.  As it turned out, we did schedule around the home football games. It did not matter; some of the guests were listening to the game on the radio while waiting for the wedding to start.

The wedding was nice, but Suzanne did not get to pick the color she wanted for the bridesmaids' dresses. She did not get to choose anything really. The only thing I got to choose was the tuxes. We had the Ronald Reagan Day Coat.

The day before the wedding, Suzanne fell down the back steps at the house and hurt herself pretty badly. She was sore the day (and night) of the wedding.

We had the rehearsal dinner at the Best Western University Inn. On the way home from the rehearsal, I was driving the 1965 Ford Galaxy.  My father was riding shotgun. A car pulled up beside us and was horsing the engine, challenging us to a race.

I thought my father would be upset if I raced.  My father said “Let him get a little bit ahead of you, then smoke him.”  I was surprised, but since I was very experienced at racing on the open highway, this was no problem.  I smoked him.

The night of the wedding, we drove to the Ramada Inn in Spartanburg.  It was right by my old house in the Rescue 16 /Metro area.

We stayed in the Jacuzzi Suite. That night we had shrimp cocktails and Champaign.  Suzanne was still pretty sore, so we had a relaxed evening.

The next day, we drove around Spartanburg and went to Capris Italian restaurant for supper.

The following day we drove to Memphis, Tennessee. We checked in at the Holiday Inn where I had prepaid for the bridal suite complete with Champaign breakfast for two days.

We toured Graceland, Elvis’ jet, and went to the Memphis Airport and ate Mississippi Mud Pie.

When we checked out after the second day, the hotel tried to charge me for the second Champaign breakfast.  I told them, no, that was part of the package.

A steel company was checking in for a meeting and the guy in charge for the steel company told the manager that they would not check in until the hotel resolved the matter with me. The hotel wrote off the breakfast.

We drove to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and stayed for a couple of days. Then, we rode to Asheville and stayed at a Holiday Inn there. 

The next day, we toured the Biltmore Estate and ate at the Deer Park Restaurant on the estate.  The problem with expensive food is that it is never any good and you don’t get very much of it.  The food was okay, but the dressing had oranges in it and there was very little to eat.  When we left the estate, we went to McDonalds.

We stayed one more night in Asheville and then drove back to Iva.  We went to our new house and crashed.  We spent two weeks on our honeymoon.  It was a blast.

Visit my beautiful child-bride, Suzanne’s, Blog.

This post inspired by Wedding Wednesday 
(Suggested by Carol of Reflections from the Fence and in use by several genealogy bloggers.) http://reflectionsfromthefence.blogspot.com/
I found it on Geneabloggers: http://www.geneabloggers.com/daily-blogging-prompts/wedding-wednesday/

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McClendon Studios Presents: Papa's Proposal

Papa’s Proposal

My child-bride Suzanne and I had dated for several years when, one day, my father decided he wanted to know when we were going to get married.

I was in my final semester at the University of South Carolina and was about to graduate with a Bachelors of Media Arts degree, so I thought.  I had resumes all over the world.  I would graduate as an audio engineer.  I had been offered a job with Turner Television.  Turner was in negotiations with Australia and things looked pretty good.

Suzanne and I were sitting in the den at my parents’ house.  See my (The House That Built Me post.) My father called Suzanne into the kitchen.  He said “Su De Lou, come in here a minute.” She went and I followed.  When we got into the kitchen he said,” Su De Loo, are you going to marry David?”

Suzanne looked at him and said, “If he ever asks me.”

He said to me, “David, are you going to ask her?”   I responded, “Yes.” He said, "Now that that bull is over with, I have something to ask you.”

Papa offered Suzanne a job at the Western Auto store as a customer service person.  He told me he wanted me to manage the store.

His idea was that he wanted to work on another business and train me to take over the store.

Later that night, Suzanne and I discussed the date of the wedding that had been a foregone conclusion for years and was no real secret to anyone. 

The next time my father saw Suzanne, he took her to what was going to be our new house.  He had plans to fix it up and have it ready for when we got married.

The house was ready on time.  As it turned out, my advisor had made a mistake in calculating my credits.  I was three credit hours short of graduating.  I finished my degree years later at Anderson University, where I took my Media Arts credits and turned them into a BBA business degree.  Later, I earned my MBA from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Along the way, we had five beautiful children (one stillborn) who are the joys of our life.  We also have two peppy grand-doggers.

What about you? Did life happen while you were making plans?

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That's the Good Stuff

McClendon Studios Presents:

That’s the Good Stuff

Kenny Chesney sings a song called That’s the Good Stuff.  In this song, he talks about when a man and a woman first get married. He eats burnt supper the whole first year and asks for seconds to keep her from tearing up.  That’s the good stuff.

Suzanne and I had been married just a few months, maybe not even that long.

She loved to cook and she loved to try new recipes.  Her cooking was always pretty good.  There was an instance when my brother came over for supper.  All was going well.  Suzanne had cooked country fried steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes and gravy. 

Suzanne apologized several times for the gravy being a little thick. Sometime during the meal, my brother holds out his plate and says, “Slice me off some of that gravy there, Suzanne.”  We all got a laugh.  The meal tasted great.  Just the gravy was a little thick.

One day, Suzanne found a recipe for herbed livers.  Now, we had bought her a very vast assortment of herbs and spices.  Unfortunately, we had overlooked most of the ones she needed to cook this recipe. 

We lived in the small town of Iva, South Carolina.  Iva had a grocery store and it had some herbs and spices, but not any of the more exotic ones.  So, Suzanne decided to wing it.  She substituted a little of this and a little of that. She was still cooking when I came in from work.

I sat down at the table and she brought me this big plate of Herbed Chicken Livers. It looked and smelled great.  She had also cooked green beans and rice.  She had to finish cooking the last of the livers before she sat down. She told me to go ahead and start eating before my supper got cold.  So, I did.

I took one bite of my liver and tasted something that I had never tasted before. To say it tasted bad would be an understatement. It was terrible.

If you have ever seen the movie For Richer For Poorer when Tim Allen first tastes the heart, lung, and kidney casserole, the look on Tim’s face was roughly the way I felt on the first bite.

But, I knew that she had tried so hard and would be devastated if I did not eat it.  Besides, surely she had tasted one of them so far, so she must have liked it.

I worked my way through the livers.  I had discovered that if I cut them small enough I could swallow them without chewing them. This way I did not have to taste them for very long.

I had gone through about three or four glasses of tea. Suzanne asked me from the kitchen, “How are they?”  I was honest and answered her, “I don’t think I ever tasted anything quite like this before.”

She brought in the remainder of the livers and noticed that I had almost finished mine.  She gave me a huge second helping and sat down. She said, “I just love to watch you eat.”

Now, I had to chew it because she was in the room watching me eat. She took one bite of hers and spit it out.  She said, “That is the nastiest thing I have ever tasted.  Did you really like them?”  Now, it is fess up time. I said, “You have cooked better meals in the past.”

We decided to go out to dinner that evening. Before we went, I put the remaining livers down for Cuddles the cat to eat.  They were still there when we got back. 

Visit My Child-Bride Suzanne’s Blog

Watch This on YouTube

That’s the Good Stuff

McClendon Studios Presents:

That’s the Good Stuff

Kenny Chesney sings a song called That’s the Good Stuff.  In this song, he talks about when a man and a woman first get married. He eats burnt supper the whole first year and asks for seconds to keep her from tearing up.  That’s the good stuff.

Suzanne and I had been married just a few months, maybe not even that long.

She loved to cook and she loved to try new recipes.  Her cooking was always pretty good.  There was an instance when my brother came over for supper.  All was going well.  Suzanne had cooked country fried steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes and gravy. 

Suzanne apologized several times for the gravy being a little thick. Sometime during the meal, my brother holds out his plate and says, “Slice me off some of that gravy there, Suzanne.”  We all got a laugh.  The meal tasted great.  Just the gravy was a little thick.

One day, Suzanne found a recipe for herbed livers.  Now, we had bought her a very vast assortment of herbs and spices.  Unfortunately, we had overlooked most of the ones she needed to cook this recipe. 

We lived in the small town of Iva, South Carolina.  Iva had a grocery store and it had some herbs and spices, but not any of the more exotic ones.  So, Suzanne decided to wing it.  She substituted a little of this and a little of that. She was still cooking when I came in from work.

I sat down at the table and she brought me this big plate of Herbed Chicken Livers. It looked and smelled great.  She had also cooked green beans and rice.  She had to finish cooking the last of the livers before she sat down. She told me to go ahead and start eating before my supper got cold.  So, I did.

I took one bite of my liver and tasted something that I had never tasted before. To say it tasted bad would be an understatement. It was terrible.

If you have ever seen the movie For Richer For Poorer when Tim Allen first tastes the heart, lung, and kidney casserole, the look on Tim’s face was roughly the way I felt on the first bite.

But, I knew that she had tried so hard and would be devastated if I did not eat it.  Besides, surely she had tasted one of them so far, so she must have liked it.

I worked my way through the livers.  I had discovered that if I cut them small enough I could swallow them without chewing them. This way I did not have to taste them for very long.

I had gone through about three or four glasses of tea. Suzanne asked me from the kitchen, “How are they?”  I was honest and answered her, “I don’t think I ever tasted anything quite like this before.”

She brought in the remainder of the livers and noticed that I had almost finished mine.  She gave me a huge second helping and sat down. She said, “I just love to watch you eat.”

Now, I had to chew it because she was in the room watching me eat. She took one bite of hers and spit it out.  She said, “That is the nastiest thing I have ever tasted.  Did you really like them?”  Now, it is fess up time. I said, “You have cooked better meals in the past.”

We decided to go out to dinner that evening. Before we went, I put the remaining livers down for Cuddles the cat to eat.  They were still there when we got back. 

Visit My Child-Bride Suzanne’s Blog

Watch This on YouTube