My Parents’ Wedding Anniversary

Last Wednesday, October 1^st, 2014, would have been my parents’ 75^th wedding anniversary if they had still been around. We sometimes get caught up in genealogy with thinking about family members who lived hundreds of years ago and often miss thinking about the particular events that happened much closer to our own existence.

I have been rebuilding our family albums in recent months and have been reminded of people and events that I remember or was told about. Photographs are great at bringing realism and life to stories and for showing us who the members of our family really were, not to mention what they looked like. One should dig out their old albums every once in a while to revisit family members that are now gone.

Wedding photos are particularly important and poignant as they document the actual point in time when a new family began. I have wedding photos in my collection that span five generations, from my children on back. The earliest was taken in 1890. They are all very valuable to me and hang together in a special place in our home. I have some pictures of individuals that go back further but not of couples. The one furthest back in my direct line was taken in 1875. Imagine – almost 140 years ago!

My parents did not live together to celebrate their 35^th anniversary, my mother dying just two days prior to that date, at the age of 57. My father died less than a decade later, at the relatively young age of 68. I will go past that age this year.

Anyway, the photo of them together on their wedding day is something very special to me.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Some other photos from that important date:

A wedding shower held for the bride

The wedding party at the home of the bride’s parents where the marriage took place

The bride and groom with their parents

The wedding guests

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.