River and I had made a life for ourselves after being unceremoniously dumped on the street by my mother and left to fend, practically penniless. We had grasped, clawed and fought our way back to some semblance of financial security and it meant that we had a place of our own. I didn't have to tolerate the abuses that my mother heaped on me and we'd been able to live our lives. I don't think that my mother was interested in meddling in River's or my business and well, we finally set a date. It was a private wedding of course, we didn't bother inviting anyone. The most important people to each other were present and that was what was important.
It was an emotional moment when River stood in front of me with her wedding dress on, her hair up and a gleam in her eye that spoke of the deep love that she had for me. I'm sure that I had the same look of love for her present in my eyes, because her face just lit up.
I lost the scruffy hairstyle that I usually wore in favor of a more neatly combed hairstyle. I guess I cleaned up well. She took my hand...as we spoke, with deep feeling, the vows that we'd wrote for each other. This wasn't a fancy church wedding: we didn't need that; it was the meeting and joining together of two souls in holy matrimony, in a bond that would stand the test of time itself.
We had no formal pastor to tell us to exchange rings. We didn't need that. All we needed was a mutual look and River took my hand and slid the custom made ring that was to be my wedding band on my finger as she whispered, with emotion, "with this ring...I thee wed..."
I repeated those same lines; the lines that had been spoken by wedding couples for centuries in various similar forms. I, Haruo, take thee, River, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward.... I swear there were probably invisible ninjas cutting onions, because the both of us teared up, knowing that we were taking a monumental next step over the threshold of a new life together.
When we drew in to kiss each other for the very first time as husband and wife, even though we had kissed many times before; it was like discovering ourselves for the very first time. That through whatever life would throw at us, we would stand side-by-side, weathering the storm; no matter how rough the seas of life got. And that, is the glue that holds a marriage together. That was what would keep us together, as we had come through so much together already; building a life from nothing. Not even my mother could keep us apart and if that couldn't fracture our relationship, nothing on God's Green Earth ever would.
We didn't need to have a pastor present to tell us when the wedding ceremony was over or formally pronounce us as a married couple. We knew that we were married and the only formal thing that we had to do was sign the marriage license and be formally declared as a couple in the Province of British Columbia and that was easily done at Vancouver City Hall.
Of course River was looking forward to something else, while I was more interested in setting up the camera so that we could get our formal wedding portraits done.
Setting up the Hikon DH300s was probably one of the funnest things I've ever done knowing that we could do our own formal photographs.
Let's just say that it felt great to try out different poses and see just how romantic of a wedding photo set that we could get. I've always loved photography even though I wasn't a big fan of portraiture - I was more the wildlife/landscape type, introvert. Heck both River and I were. We kept to ourselves only needing each other's company. We didn't need to be out at the local hotspot socializing. All the socializing that we could ever want was with each other.
Happy is the man who finds a true friend; and happier still is the man who finds that true friend in his wife~Franz Schubert. Yes, it was enough.
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