Over the Falls in a Barrel

It was a trip to my grandparent’s house in Batavia, NY that changed the date of our wedding anniversary. We were sitting around the table after dinner discussing our wedding plans and telling Oma and Opa that we had already saved up ten thousand dollars for our wedding which was just over a year away. Opa, being the staunch, rigid German that he was, stated that it was quite a lot of money and maybe we should elope instead and use the money for a house.

Well this was a revelation, eloping had never occurred to us. It seemed to make perfect sense. The two of us talked about it the rest of the night off and on. We woke early the next morning and my fiancé Lisa looked at me and said, “so are we doing this?” I asked if she was sure, she assured me she was and the decision had been made.

We gathered our things, wrote a note that we were going to Niagara Falls and that we’d see them tomorrow and we were off. An hour later we were at the falls and found a motel room. Not knowing how to go about this we checked the phone book and noticed a listing for the chamber of commerce. They instructed us to go to city hall for a license which we had to wait overnight for and there was no blood test. They also scheduled the ceremony for an inside arboretum adjacent to the mall.

We had some time so we shopped for wedding clothes since we were unprepared for this moment when we drove to New York State in the first place. Lisa chose a simple white dress with back polka dots and I picked a new blue shirt with complementing tie. Next we walked to the Falls. There was so much electricity in the air. We had a secret that no one else knew about.

The sun was slowly falling over the cascading water as we walked hand in hand on the Canadian side to the rooftop restaurant. After a starry-eyed dinner we proceeded back to our quarters to await our upcoming nuptials.

We rose early the next morning to have breakfast even though we both had butterflies. We were to be at the arboretum at 10:00 A.M. and we were ten minutes early. The judge was already there and had us complete our paperwork while the Chamber of Commerce representative went into the mall to wrangle up two witnesses, a mother and daughter from Canada.

It was all very quaint. Two strangers for witnesses pulled from the mall, a judge in a black robe chanting the vows, a custodian taking pictures and us standing in the middle of a small pond on an island-type structure in disbelief that we would be married in several heartbeats. A small crowd grew around us and all of a sudden the judge said, “you may kiss the bride,” and it was over.

Congratulations came from all around. Well wishers who just happened through at that time of the morning shook our hands and smiled. Slowly our congregation dispersed to continue with their daily routine. Our daily routine had now changed forever. We strolled around as husband and wife for a bit breathing in our new status. We gazed upon the falls one last time before taking our exit from our secret marriage grotto.

We drove back to my grandparents and gave them the news but they had already anticipated it. All the other family had no idea and over the next several days it would be fun telling them and the friends, all of whom thought we were joking at first, even with the marriage certificate in hand.

We did buy a house with the saved money and our first child was born less than one month before our first anniversary. Most people want to share their wedding day with their loved ones and we thought we wanted to also but that special memory just for the two of us lives in only our hearts and we decided we liked it that way.

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Over the Falls in a Barrel