Long-Time Love | My wish for everyone

Oh friends, want to know why I love a love story as much as I do?

I know how rare it is to be able to say this, and I couldn’t be more thankful to be able to write this next sentence:

But both Andrew and I have the very best, inspiring examples of long-time love.

His parents have been together since they were teenagers. Yes, at just 18 and 19, they promised each other a forever.

My parents? A similar story with a 21st celebrated as fiancés and over 30 years of life celebrated since.

I wear my Granny’s diamond everyday (more on this amazing wedding gift from Andrew coming soon). It was a diamond that she wore for over 40 years as she did life by my Grandpa’s side. They’re probably somewhere sipping scotch and eating baked goods right now.

As for my other Gran & Grandad? Their long-time love story spans over 50 years, four countries, four children, a bunch of us crazy grand kid-lets, good days, hard days and every day ordinary days… all filled with the same promise. To choose their story, and one another. Over and over again, no matter what. To stick it out. To celebrate it. To live together, for the long-haul.

Ahead of a smooch-filled weekend, here’s a little interview I did with my beautiful Gran this week.

Me:

Hi Gran. I’m writing an article for brides planning their weddings but I want to talk to them about preparing for their marriages. I know a lot about your long-time love story, but I would love to share it on my blog for my brides. Would you mind answering a few questions for me?

Gran:

I’ll get right on it! … And then she sent me pages and photos and I ugly cried.

Because you guys, this is my wish for every human being, no matter what the love looks like. I just want it all to be like this.

Long-time love!

So while I grab some kleenex here’s a little chat with my Gran to get the heart-eyes going for the weekend ahead:

Where did you two meet?

I was already friends with his sister, so I knew about Grandad. I finally met him at a Beatnik party (oh my, that sounds so old fashioned – even before flower power. Google it! <—– #mygranisthecoolest!)  I ended up sitting on his lap singing to him. (she also added that “alcohol had been consumed”! hahaha)

How did he propose?

The proposal? It was rather un-eventful. Grandad had asked my Dad if we could marry, then Grandad and I talked about getting married whilst sitting in the car. Unbeknown to me, Grandad had already been to the jeweller and asked for the rings in his apprenticeship-wages-range to be shown when he arrived in the shop with me (so sneaky and cute right?).

I will never forget that day, I was excited and nervous and shut my finger in the car door! Fortunately not my ring finger.

When you planned your wedding, what was it like back then? What did you need to organise?

Planning weddings will probably always be the same. Wedding and bridesmaids dresses and gifts, flowers and all that stuff. Gran Sylvia (My grandad’s mom) wanted to sew my wedding dress (she was a fabulous, well known dressmaker) so I went fabric shopping. My Mom and I planned a few wedding favours and table decorations. We saw the priest and planned flowers for the church.

We are lucky that we were able to be married in the old, quaint catholic church because we were well into our plans when we were told the church was going to be demolished before our date and the ceremony would have to take place in the hall, as well as the reception. We were not happy about that. Luckily there was a hold-up with the contractors and the church was demolished a week after we were married, to be replaced with a very modern structure.

Ours was the last wedding in the old church.

Where did you honeymoon?

We had a long honeymoon in Durban (South Africa). We had a fabulous time, I got sunburnt sitting under a brolly (Zimbabwean for “umbrella”) on the beach, not so fabulous. We made new friends at the hotel, met old friends who were on holiday, visited Gran Sylvia’s family in the Transvaal before driving back to home to Kitwe (in Zambia) to start our new life.

If you could tell your young bride-self one thing what would it be?

I would tell myself to stay and enjoy the reception and and party with everyone! (Best advice ever right there!)

What advice would you give a bride on preparing for the journey of marriage?

I would say make sure you start as you mean to carry on, keep respect and share chores in the home, especially if you both work. And never go to sleep on an argument, make up so you begin the next day with love.

[Tweet “Make up so you begin the next day with love.”]

What’s your biggest challenge in keeping your long-time love story going?

Sometimes it is a challenge! We all change as we get older, and develop little foibles that we have to tolerate. What keeps our long-time story going is the fact that we really love each other deep deep down even those times when we disagree, sometimes over petty things. Also, we look at what we have achieved – our four well-adjusted, wonderful children who have in turn produced the same in their offspring! (<—- nothing like a little granny bragging to make a grandkid feel great hey!)

What brings you your greatest joy?

My greatest joy is seeing our family all happy and well.

What three tips would you say saved your marriage in the harder times?

First, the promise I made to love till death do us part. Second, we want to always do our family proud and wouldn’t want to cause the upset of a break-up.  Thirdly, with hard work you can resolve problems and carry on loving each other.

[Tweet “With hard work you can resolve problems and carry on loving each other”]

Where would you get married again if you could?

If I had to get married again it would not be in a church and it would be more casual.

If you could renew your vows, would you change anything or add anything?

I might add a couple of clauses to our vows and make them more personal versus traditional.

What do you believe has kept you together all these years?

Love, tolerance and patience.

Here’s a little look at two of my other biggest inspirations: My Granny + Grandpa and my sweet parents soon after their engagement!

Long-time love.

It’s my wish for each and every person.

Call me a hopeless romantic, sure! But thanks to the inspirational stories out there, and mostly to our immediate examples  (whose stories include the hard, “yikes, is this going to be worth it?” stuff, the good, “hooray” stuff and the everyday, “choosing one another” stuff), I truly believe it’s still possible.

So friends, please choose. Smooch and squeeze the ones you love. Love them hard, out-loud. But choose. Choose your own story and each other, over and over again!

xxx