One day Paul and Jennifer (also known as Paul Wickenden of Thanet and Yana Barsova) were talking about what to do if they ever got married to each other. You see, Paul is a Quaker and Jennifer is a devout agnostic (just a little joke). They are both in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and since Paul is the religious person and had definite ideas of what he would like for his wedding ceremony, they came to the conclusion that Paul would get to pick the modern ceremony and Jennifer would get to pick the SCA one. (Hee hee hee) Enter...
The Russian Wedding Idea!!!
Silly Paul. Jennifer weaseled him into doing research on what a Medieval Russian Wedding would include (remember, this is before they even got engaged) under the pretense that he was fluent in Russian and she was not, and he was the oh-so-very scholarly one and she was not, and what better addition to his research on Medieval Russian names than an article on Russian Weddings? Well, it worked (gullible Paul).
Once Jennifer got what she wanted (she is still fairly good at this), she convinced Paul that their relationship was strong enough to withstand the horrible onslaught of...the "M" word [marriage]. (You can shudder here, if you like)
Okay, okay, okay. I AM leaving out the icky breakup and the long distance relationship that followed and the getting together again and the having to decide when to live together again (which included a long move and the loss of a really nice job) and the adjustment to a very small town with a very small University with a very small-minded population. But that doesn't matter because we were (I mean ARE) IN LOVE (violins, roses, champagne. Oh wait, I don't drink)
Anyway, Paul and Jennifer got legally married [March 1, 1997] to foil the nasty baddies who decided only married couples could share benefits and Paul eventually got his Quaker wedding [June 14, 1997].
Now it's my turn!!!! (bwah hah hah hah!)
