Cindi and Ted, Chapter Eight

The dark blue, velvet box stayed under my pillow all night long. Since about 5th grade I've always worn a ring on the ring finger of my left hand, so I had on a different ring throughout the night and when we went to church that next morning.

To say that I had a difficult time paying attention to the priest was an understatement. I kept thinking about how I was going to tell my parents this news. They treated Ted well, so I assumed they liked him. But maybe they really didn't, and it was just a front. Hmmmm... Then there was the fact that we were young. I was 20, and Ted was just a few weeks shy of his 20th birthday. Well, the worst thing they could say is that they didn't think it was a good idea, so it was time to tell them.

I had a feeling it would be easier if I told them one at a time.

After church, my mom would always start cooking Sunday dinner. We usually ate around 12:30, so I knew that she was in the kitchen cooking. I also knew that my dad and younger brother were outside doing something or another.

I took the box and went into the kitchen. I took a deep breath, and said, "Look at what Ted gave me last night," and waited for her to say something.

"That's really pretty....you better go tell your dad."

Gulp.

Was there something more to this? I don't really know what I expected her to say, but I don't think that was quite it. I was wondering why she said it that way. Of course I was slightly paranoid and was probably reading things into her comments.

I went out the back door and found my dad and brother. Again I opened the box and said, "Look at what Ted gave me last night."

No comment from dad.

However, my brother spoke up immediately.

"So when are you moving out?"

He was 16 years old and saw this as a way to take over my bedroom, since it was bigger than his.

Finally my dad said, "That's nice."

I went back inside and took the ring box back to my bedroom and put it on my dresser. I left it there while we ate dinner and NO ONE said a word about it during the entire meal. Afterwards, while my mom and I were cleaning up, she asked if we had a date in mind and I said that it wouldn't be until after I was finished with college, and she seemed to be very relieved about that. Then she said that I should put the ring on. I told her I would when I got ready for him to pick me up to take me back to college.

I heard him come in an hour or so later and I heard my dad say, "Welcome to the family Ted" and that made me feel soooooooooo good.

We were officially engaged!

Now that my parents knew, and seemed to have approved, the question was with Ted's family. As we left the house with my stuff loaded up, he told me that he hadn't told his parents yet. His parents had divorced a couple of years earlier so that meant telling them separately. Ted was living with his dad on the family farm, and his mother had an apartment in town. He said that he would tell his dad that night after he got home from taking me back to school, but we were going to stop and tell his mom before we left town.

She was VERY excited for us! She wanted to know if she could tell people and we told her that it would be fine, but to also tell them that we didn't have a date yet.

When we left there and went to school, we talked about the date on the way. We knew that we wanted it to definitely be after I was done with college, and during the summer so as not to interfere with a teaching job I might have.

We didn't want it to be in August...too hot. We didn't want it to be in July...that's the month of my birthday and that was enough for that month. That left June. June would be a fine month for a wedding.

When we got to my apartment at school, we found a calendar for the following year and looked at Saturdays in June. I have a thing about even numbers, so right away June 7 and June 21 were out. That left June 14 and June 28. We decided we would rather have it in mid June than late June, so it was decided that we would get married on Flag Day, June 14.

The following weekend we told everyone the date of the wedding, and then just relaxed. Back then you didn't need to start planning a wedding a year in advance like you do now, so we weren't too worried about things. The main goal was for me to finish college and try to find a teaching job somewhere near home.

Fortunately everyone was very happy for us. In retrospect, we were surprised that NO ONE tried to talk us into waiting for several years because we were rather young. By the date we had picked out, we would both be 21, but that's still a little on the young side for getting married.

I began looking at some bridal magazines, trying to get some ideas. I had a little notebook that I wrote a lot of things down in. Since we didn't have the internet available at that time, most ideas came from either talking to people or magazines. I liked looking at the advertisements in the back of the bridal magazines and sent for quite a few catalogs. We would look over things together and make some decisions, only to change them within a matter of days.

The one thing I did right after we selected the date was to call my church and reserve it for that day. It was a good thing I did, because not too much later someone else in the congregation had selected the same date, but because we were first, they had to work around our schedule. We had scheduled the wedding for the middle of the afternoon, so they had to use it in the morning.

That was it for the plans...until the fall.

To be continued...