A

7 years ago today, I got married. About 10 people knew that.

6.5 year ago, I had my beautiful wedding.

Appa and I have two wedding anniversaries. Today, which we call "A" and our "wedding day," which we privately call B, but consider our main anniversary. After all, that was the day we made our nearest and dearest sweat it out in 100+ temps while shaking their booties to Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby Got Back," and when we started wearing rings.

But today, today is technically the day I married my favorite man. It's special, whether I wanted it to be or not.

And I didn't want it to be...this anniversary.

If shotgun wedding could apply to more than just pregnancy, that would be our blessed wedding day. We waited just the required 10 days after I moved to the Midwest before getting hitched. Without going into too much detail, we had been emotionally blackmailed into getting married instead of living together for 6 months before our wedding day. (I've forgiven them, of course, but it doesn't change the memories of that day).

So imagine the scene. A young man and woman dressed in whatever they threw on that day are standing in a city building hallway (it had a fake tree, which was apparently to make it fancy), surrounded by parents dressed in nice dress clothes holding video cameras. The man looks really annoyed and the woman looks downright pissed. After being guilted into hold some flowers, she begins the "ceremony" by asking the man who was officiating to say as "little as possible and make it quick." She even begins the ceremony with her hands on her hips.

At 22, I was a still learning to handle my emotions appropriately, as you can see.

After the quick 5 minute ceremony, which I remember nothing of, we all went into the side room to officially sign the marriage certificate. Two minutes later, I went into physical shock.

Everyone but Appa left the room, and together he and I mourned the experience we felt we had just thrown away. It was actually incredibility traumatic for me and had me in sporadic tears for a days.

And I am pretty sure the officiator put $100 on our marriage lasting 6 months.

The evening ended with a "fancy" meal at a steak house Appa's parents used to love when they lived in this particular college town decades before. Wouldn't you know, the place had changed hands and the walls were covered with white sheets of computer paper with hand written scriptures quotes all over them. The steak was okay, though. A perfectly weird ending to a perfectly weird day.

There are no pictures from this day, and the video is apparently not an enjoyable one to watch. I wouldn't know, I never watched it.

So, it's funny that I now have a fondness of this anniversary. In the grand scheme of life, getting married early only benefited us (taxes, insurance, credit, etc.). We told only our immediate family and best friends, so our actual wedding was still very much the celebration we had hoped for.

And now, I get TWO anniversaries!

So Appa, if you ever read this, happy 7A. I'd marry you in a hallway all over again in a heartbeat. I'd even put on something nice and hold your hand this time.