Mr & Mrs Transformed Nonconformist

Four months! 

It's been over four months since my last post. A lot can happen over four months. A lot has happened. I've really dropped the ball. Let me try to give a quick recap of what I have not written about.

My daughter left high school with a bang.

Valentine's Day has come and gone, as well as St. Patrick's Day. I got a job in the Indianapolis Public School system. Spring Break is over. Summer vacation has started. My daughter graduated high school. Orange is the New Black has released season two onto Netflix. Russia invaded the Ukraine. An 18 year old girl in New Jersey lost the case against her parents when she sued them for college tuition. The Big Bang Theory got picked up for three more seasons. Casey Kasem died and I got married.

I'm not going to try to cover all of that in this post. One thing at a time. Let's start with the last item on the list. I got married.

OK. It's 7 o' clock. Let's compare stories. I got married today. Who can top that one?
— Brett Minor (@brettminor) May 4, 2014

I am sure that I have lost some followers since my writing has drastically slowed in the last year, but my long-time readers know that on May 2, 2012, I met face-to-face with Red of Doesn't Speak Klingon. Before that, we met through our blogs, we conversed in the comment sections. We traded emails and eventually started making phone calls. We then dated for almost two years while living 200 miles apart.

Last December, I moved to Indianapolis to take advantage of some educational opportunities to finish up my degree. I moved to a big city for these opportunities. I chose Indianapolis because that was where Red lived. We had already seriously discussed marriage, but there was nothing official. I thought it would be nice to get to date while living in the same town. Those bi-weekly commutes were hard on both of our wallets.

It didn't take long before we knew marriage was in our future. We just needed to decide when. Neither one of us was interested in the ceremony, but didn't want to exclude family either, so eloping or just going to a courthouse was out of the question. We had the end of the summer in mind. I would have just finished my degree and she would be moved into a bigger place ready for me to come join her.

Once we got her moved in, we were just waiting for the time to pass. I had my place, she had hers, and we knew we would be married in 3 to 4 months. However, no one else knew that. We had decided to keep it quiet so it could be ours and no one else's. We wanted no family input on how it should be done, what food should be served, what should be worn, or who should be invited. We just wanted to be married. We didn't know when it would happen, but we did know we wouldn't be giving much notice to anyone.

One Saturday morning, Red was discussing the travel plans of her sisters. They were both going to be in town the following weekend. Her family is so spread out, they are very rarely all in the same place. Her brothers aren't even in the country. So, I suggested doing it the following Sunday.

Red: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Sure. Why not?"
Red: "OK!"
Me: "Great! We're getting married in eight days!"

I quickly called Chuck, a local minister friend of mine, to check his availability. We then called Red's parents to tell them our plans and get permission to do it in their backyard. We called our immediate family members and assured everyone that nothing was needed but their presence. For the people who like to stress about these types of events, we had provided them with the gift of only getting to stress for eight days.

We did get some questions.

"Would you like me to pick up some ___________?"
"No."

"Hey. Should I bring a ____________?"
"No."

"How about if we get a few _____________?"
"No."

Red and I had decided that more "stuff" and involvement would just make the event bigger and more stressful with things to plan. We were going to show up at her parents' house after church with some pizzas and soda for everyone and when they all got there, get married. That was a simple plan and we wanted it to stay that way.

We only put effort into three things.

1. Red SOLO cups - we specifically had red SOLO cups simply because someone told us that we couldn't (not one of the guests or family).
2. We purposefully mismatched the plates we used. I had a 10-pack of Happy Birthday, 10-pack of sports themed, 10-pack of underwater themed, and 10-pack of Disney princesses. This was done to demonstrate that we were not concerned with protocol or appearance.
3. We begged everyone to not mention the ceremony to anyone or put it on social media. We wanted to announce it after the fact. Everyone respected our wishes.

Red's mother did get us a beautiful cake and one of her sisters bought items for the best man, maid of honor, and cheerleader to hold (we had a cheerleader instead of a flower girl).

Notice the casual style.
(Except for the cheerleader's tiara and my tuxedo t-shirt)

It occurred to us after picking the date that May 4th is Star Wars Day.

"May the Fourth (force) be with you."

Get it? Plus, since Red is a huge Star Wars geek, it turned out to be the perfect day to do it. That's why there were light sabers. Thank you, Hestia.

We had 15 guests (plus the minister and his 6 kids), a day that could not have been more beautiful, and every family invited was able to make it. Plus, our main goal for the day was accomplished. We were married.

I only met this wonderful woman because
I started a blog in October 2010.