Twenty years | The Last Krystallos

Today we have been married for twenty years…here’s why…

Vince: I remember one of our first dates, a picnic then a wander through woods where we came face to face with a deer…we stood in awe for a few minutes ‘til the deer moved away…

Lisa: I loved my first ever bunch of flowers, daffodils and tulips, from the

Temple grounds where Vince was working as a gardener…

Vince: On our honeymoon to Guernsey we hired a car and went to a petrol station and began to fill it up. The attendant quickly advised us to only put a few pounds in. We soon realised why when we drove round the island visiting all the beaches in one day!

Lisa: That moment in hospital, after giving birth, when I looked over to see my husband holding our brand new daughter in his arms and tears running down his face, as the early morning sunlight streamed in through the window…

Vince: Walks along beaches as the sun goes down and holding hands…

Lisa: Dressing up posh for Youth Prom nights, made us feel like kids again as we never had Proms when we were young!

Vince: The excitement when we planned a surprise, mystery day for the children which involved their first aeroplane flight and a day in Scotland…

Lisa: We love romantic dog walks in all weather: seeing blossom on the trees in spring, listening to the bubbling river in the summer, rustling through fallen leaves in autumn and crunching through freshly fallen snow in winter…

Vince: Visiting the Temple as a couple…both at Preston and London Temples…being in the spiritual splendour of the Temple and its grounds, reminding us of the eternal nature of our marriage…

Lisa: I love his sense of fun…dressing up at Halloween, playing Bill Sykes in our family adaptation of ‘Oliver’ and just getting involved enthusiastically…

Vince: I love how Lisa encourages our children to be the very best that they can be…

Lisa: Christmas time…and family time…I love to watch our family unite in the season of giving and love…

Vince: I love the support Lisa gives me in everything I want to do…. Even when she knows it won’t work out…

Lisa: I love how Vince always does his best and conscientiously achieves such high standards…and his support and encouragement makes me feel special, like I can achieve anything…

Vince: I love the confidence Lisa has in me in achieving anything, she knows my potential far better than I do, I love the way she encourages me when I have doubts….

Lisa: I love how when I‘m anxious and worry about things Vince doesn’t let anything faze him…he tells me everything will be alright…

and it always is…

Vince: I love when Lisa cuddles up to me on the sofa of an evening. I love it when she comes up to me just for a hug…

Lisa: Those moments when I’m out and see Vince drive by in his bus, or when he gets home from work…still give me tingles and bubbles of love in my heart…

Vince: I love looking up at the night sky, with Lisa next to me as we contemplate the other worlds that Heavenly Father has created, and how we could one day, create worlds of our own…

Lisa: I love his strength and protection… I love searching for Vince’s hand and finding it…

Twenty years ago I married the man I love with all my heart…it was a wonderful day and I love my memories!

But…I was young and naive and we were short of cash…and we would have changed a few things if we’d had the chance. Our invitations were typewritten postcards, couldn’t afford posh stationary, and the reception left a fair bit to be desired! I wish we’d gone with the traditional idea of having the reception catered for by the women of the church, I’ve seen it work so well! We didn’t, and we weren’t happy with the catering, but I was too young and shy to object. So when Vince and I talked about having a twentieth wedding anniversary celebration, I wanted to do it my way!

First came the invitations, many were sent out on a Facebook event page, but I also designed my own and had them printed…

I loved them, the roses were an almost exact match for the Jacaranda roses I had for my wedding bouquet! Thus our colour scheme was set…

My dress was the same colour, Bekah chose red and Caitlin wore lilac, beautiful jewel colours! Vince’s tie matched my dress and Dan’s was red. I bought reams and reams of ribbons in the same colours and twisted them to make decorations, the cake was covered in berries of the same colours. The sweetie jar was filled with red and purple sweets, and the glowsticks were red, lilac and blue!

It rained on the day, but it didn’t dampen our spirits!

So, the invitations looked good, and to rectify the food and drink served at our original reception (spicy food and concentrated carbonated apple juice…I barely ate anything and that wasn’t from wedding nerves!) we went for desserts and lots of them! Trifles, cheesecakes, gateaux, pavlova, eclairs, cupcakes and much more! And we drank Schloer in all its varieties…

The plasma ball and glowsticks went down like a house on fire, and we decided to have some fun with competitions! Guess how many sweets in the jar, a selection of twenty photos to guess our ages, and a list of twenty questions to see how much everyone knew about us! We didn’t realise how difficult it is to guess ages of people from photographs!

We chose to begin by sharing twenty ‘Expressions of Love’, memories and things we love about each other then we played twenty songs for each of our years together! It was great to feel relaxed, something we didn’t feel at our reception, (we were too keen to get away) to dance and just to have fun!

We loved our party, which incorporated my fortieth birthday too, I hadn’t had a party of any kind since I was about eight-years-old, so it was fulfilling in many ways! I loved my dress, I loved the music and the desserts, I loved all my friends and most of all I love (in the present tense) my husband too…♥