Wedding Anniversary: The Fantastic Fourth

Today, Paul and I celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. But people who know us realize we’ve been together much longer than that— 13 years!

We decided our dating anniversary would be the day to get married. The ceremony was held on Friday night — which was quite unusual in itself — but we didn’t want to wait until June 12 fell on a Saturday. We did everything our own way, of course: our friend married us, there was no religion and we didn’t have a rehearsal as evidenced by the slip ups during the ceremony. But it was all us. The ceremony was intimate and we invited only our closest friends. No distant relatives here!

One of my favorite things about it was the music. We didn’t have dancing of any kind but I hired my friend, Andy and his friend to play. I didn’t have any specific music in mind except one by They Might Be Giants.

The band They Might Be Giants played a significant role in our relationship. One day Paul came into work wearing one of their concert t-shirts and I struck up a conversation with him which was the start of our friendship. (I’ve been a fan of TMBG since they mid-’80s so finding someone with mutual admiration of their quirky and oft-times misunderstood music was thrilling.) Our first date was at a They Might Be Giants concert and we’ve seen them play countless times.

I had been sending out red herrings weeks before our wedding; I made a fake playlist on my iPod to fool Paul. Initially, I thought they should play Depeche Mode’s very cliché “Somebody,” but I happily settled on They Might Be Giants’ “She’s An Angel.” The song comes from their first album and is one of their few early songs about romance, finding someone so perfect that it must have been a mistake. At least, that’s how I interpret it.

While I don’t have have a video of my friend playing at our wedding, this rendition is lovely.

In retrospect, I should have asked Andy to sing “He’s An Angel” but regardless, I still tear up when I hear this song. (The song played as I walked towards Paul at the beginning of the ceremony.) You can listen to the original TMBG version here.