Beautiful 50th Wedding Anniversary Ceremony

Beautiful 50th Wedding Anniversary Ceremony

We fell in love on a blind date, we got married 1 1/2 years later and here we are now celebrating our Beautiful 50th Wedding Anniversary Ceremony!  Thinking back through the years, there have been so many memories, two children, seven grandchildren and even four great-grandchildren. But there is a secret to our 50 years and that is always working together to make the best out of every situation, be loving and kind and always there for each other. This is my True Love Story of how Rich and I met back on Christmas Day in 1965 and get married on July 29, 1967. http://themarthareview.com/true-love-is-forever-strong/

Now 50 years later the BIG 50, our Golden Anniversary was just as beautiful and a memory that will never be forgotten.  We had our celebration in the same church we were married in but now we live almost 1000 miles away.  That didn’t stop us from going back to the beautiful St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church in Schenectady New York.  It also didn’t stop family members from Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, and different areas of New York to travel far to celebrate with us.

We took a side trip before we went to the church to visit Central Park’s Rose Gardens.  This is where we had photos taken after our wedding in 1967 so our granddaughter decided it would be perfect to have photos taken of our 50th anniversary at the same spot.

As Alexandra was taking landscape photos, I walked towards the roses and the gardener asked if we were going to a wedding. I told him it was our 50th anniversary so he picked me a beautiful white rose!

When we arrived at the church, Father Carlino welcomed us and escorted us to the front row pew. We celebrated our special day during the 4:00 PM Mass so along with our family members, we had all the parishioners celebrating with us.  The Priest gave the Homily and talked about the Saint of the Day, which happens to be St. Martha.  When we planned our wedding day, we didn’t even realized it was St. Martha until the date was set. After mentioning St. Martha, he focused on our 50th Wedding Anniversary. As we stood in front of the church, the entire congregation sang Happy Anniversary to Rich and me.

As the Priest was preparing the altar for Communion, Rich and I were honored to present the Communion gifts to him.  But the best part of the Mass was when the organist played our favorite song from our wedding, “Ava Maria”.

I carried a few special items with me to Mass, one was a gold edge hankie that belonged to my mom, I had my dad’s bible from 1944 when my mom sent it to him during WW2, and my mother-in-law had given me beautiful blue and gold rosary beads. The other item was the latest penny that mom sent down from heaven to me.  All these items are so special and I wanted to have them with me on my special day.

St. Anthony’s is as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside.  They had a horrible fire in 2014 that damaged the entire interior but they rebuilt and restored its beauty and the first Mass after the fire was on Palm Sunday 2016.  We had photographs taken in the same outside location as we did 50 years ago.

Since Rich’s 99-year-old mother couldn’t take the ride or walk up the church steps, we went over to her new apartment after the ceremony and she was so excited to see some of her great-grandchildren and her youngest great, great-grandson.  We were able to get a beautiful photo of five generations, what a memory maker that was.  Mom, Rich & I, our oldest daughter, our oldest grandson from one daughter and our oldest granddaughter from our other daughter plus our youngest great-grandson were all in the picture!

Rich and I had a beautiful 50th Wedding Anniversary ceremony that was the beginning of making more wonderful memories. We already told Father Carlino we would be back for our 75th!

On our long drive back home to South Carolina, Rich and I re-lived many of the memories from the past 50 years from our wedding day on July 29, 1967 and our 25th anniversary when we were re-married at Immaculate Conception Church.  I wore the wedding gown I made for my oldest daughter’s wedding and at that time we had three grandchildren.  My head is full of happy memories and looking forward to making many more in the years to come.

This is a love poem I wrote to my sweetie the morning of our Beautiful 50th Wedding Anniversary Ceremony.  http://themarthareview.com/happy-golden-anniversary-my-love/

Just remember, true love is real and it can last forever!

This is how our love story began back on Christmas day, 1965, http://themarthareview.com/true-love-is-forever-strong/