Married at the stroke of Midnight on the Millennium

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We had a once in a lifetime storybook wedding!

Over 350,000 guests….not really our guests, they were attending all the parties and bands on 6th Street in Austin, Texas for the New Year’s Eve celebration for the Millennium.

You’ll see why I said it was a storybook wedding as you read on…

Our evening began with our friends and family at Pappadeaux’s.

We ate, drank, had several toasts and you would have thought we were a Queen and King.

Included in our wedding party were:  Joe David, Ashley Akin (now Ashley Akin Graf), Garrett Gandy, Marylou and Mike Elkins, Susie and John Werst, Beverly and Jim Noble, Nellie and Bill Farr with their 2 daughters and Marla Daughtery joined us later.

After dinner, as our wedding present, Louis Lee Farr III owned a Taxi service and made available to all of us Taxi cabs.  Who else do you know on New Year’s Eve on 6th Street that had their own private Taxi service? This was so cool, we could drink, party, get married and have a Taxi take us back to the hotel.

Our next stop was on 6th Street at Esther’s Follies a comedy club. Our party sat in the front 2 rows to watch the show.  We ran into Paula and Ralph Traynham, Joe David’s coach and our friends (we found out later that they got married on New Year’s Day, during the day).  Esther’s Follies was a hoot!  The main star, Ray Anderson, Austin’s nationally renowned magician has been caught up in the tornado that is Esther’s Follies for over fifteen years was so funny! He made me feel like the show was just for me as he flirted all throughout the show.  Then he called Joe David up on stage, I have to share this story….remember Ray is a magician…anyway I was not used to being around teenage boys, Ray asked for Joe David’s wallet and was talking while he was looking through Joe David’s wallet, and then stopped mid sentence, kinda looked embarrassed, then directed his attention right to me and said, “Oops, I guess Joe David is a good Boy Scout….” And out of Joe David’s wallet he pulled out a condom! (Joe David didn’t really carry a condom in his wallet)  I just died and wanted to crawl under my chair!!!  Everyone had a real good laugh, and I fell right into the skit, hook line and sinker!

We left Esther’s Follies at around 10pm and now we had to get all the way to the State Capital before midnight which was about 1/2 mile, but there were about 350,000 obstacles we would have to get through in order to get there.  There were wall to wall people!  There were 5 name bands, including Robert Earl Keen singing ‘The Road Goes On Forever and the Party Never Ends’.  That’s about how I felt, would we make it on time? I was getting nervous.  We ducked into an alley and the whole wedding party continued on.

Whew, we were all huffing and puffing, but we made it!  We were standing right in front of the State Capital in Austin, Texas looking down 6th Street at all the people. I found my Texas Star (I collect Texas Stars and wanted to get married standing right on top of it.) and we waited.  Did I mention that Mike Elkins was Reagan County Judge and was our friend and was with us???? We brought our own Judge to marry us!  We even had the newspaper and TV station there to record our special moment.

It seemed like an eternity standing there waiting. Then at about quarter to midnight, Judge Elkins started the ceremony.  It wasn’t a very long ceremony and it had to be timed just right.

As Judge Elkins was listening for the count down…. 10….9….8 he sped up the ceremony.  Then like magic, time stood still as David kissed me right at the stroke of Midnight! Then we heard all the cheers from 6th Street, and as I had my eyes still closed, I imagined the cheers were for us.

Did I mention that there were fireworks, music, the crowd cheering?

Judge Elkins then turned to everyone and announced us as Ramona and David Werst!  We were actually married.

When we returned to Big Lake, my friends held a reception for us.  It was so special, all my new family was there, the room was decorated so beautifully that I felt like I was on a movie set.  We did all the traditional wedding reception events, from toasting, throwing the bouquet, and then serving each other our wedding cake.  The wedding cake and groom cakes were so beautiful and sooo delicious too!

We froze the top tier of our wedding cake and put it in the freezer.  On our 1st Anniversary, we thawed the cake and served each other a bite.  Just like in a story book!

We’re now celebrating our 11th Anniversary!  It seems just like yesterday we were fighting our way through the crowd to get married.

I’ve loved every minute of our lives together and hope for millions of more minutes together.

I LOVE You David with all my heart!  Happy Anniversary!