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On June 23, 2005 at 1:30 in the afternoon, I got married. It was a beautiful wedding in my parents' backyard. The sun was shining, my dress was perfect and Craig looked dapper in his suit. Friends and family attended, and the mood was festive and close-knit.

Everything was wonderful. And I hardly remember any of it.

I remember the basic details, like whom I married and where it took place, but mostly my impressions are vague, recorded through the haze that was pre-wedding jitters and post-wedding...shock? The day after the wedding, I desperately wanted to ask someone, anyone, "What happened?" I actually did ask Craig, and after looking thoughtful for a moment, he replied, "I don't know." After many frustrating hours spent trying to piece together the memories, I decided to play detective and turned to my friends to find out what they remembered. This is some of what they shared:

My good friend Lori arrived early for the ceremony and offered to help with last-minute preparations. Put to work tidying the living room, she began clearing the kitchen table of miscellaneous debris, transporting it upstairs and out of sight. In her second load, she picked up Craig's bottle of topical pain medication. He had filled the prescription to treat mouth ulcers resulting from a virus we'd both had the week before. He'd been in constant pain before receiving the medicine, so his relationship to the small prescription bottle was one of desperate adoration. As she was making her way to the staircase, Craig suddenly burst into the room and swooped down on her. With an anguished cry of, "My medicine!" he grabbed the bottle from her startled hands, then scuttled off with a panicked look on his face. As Lori went back to her cleaning, the thought occurred to her that if Craig protected everything that was important to him with such dedicated ferocity, I'd be safe forever.

My sister, Nici, related this tale: She and a friend of mine were sitting together chatting at the reception. My friend, never one to let a good thing go unnoticed, pointed to my cousin Nick and remarked how attractive he was. "Who is he?" she asked. After staring at him blankly, Nici said loudly, "I have no idea. He must be from Craig's side." Our cousin, close enough to overhear this remark, stared in disbelief at my sister. As he looked at her incredulously, Nici suddenly recognized him. "Oh my gosh, it's my cousin Nick!" she exclaimed. Lori laughed as Nici kept bumbling for words, feeling like she had to make up for her inability to recognize her own family. This story was comforting for me to hear, as it proved that Craig and I weren't the only ones who had sent our brains on temporary hiatus.

Many guests braved weekend traffic and came over on the ferries. For some, the commute proved more eventful than the actual wedding. Carpooling together were my friend Carla and her mom, Judy, and my friends Kara and Carl. As the wait at the ferry dock dragged on, the car, stuffed with four people, seemed to grow progressively smaller, and boredom set in. Judy, who had planned to change for the wedding on the boat, decided to make use of the unexpected time. She informed her fellow travelers of her plan to change in the back seat, then proceeded to strip. Carl, a gentleman to the core, bore it as long as he could and then disappeared on a long walk. Days later, Carl, displaying his indomitable grace and good humor, sent an e-mail to Carla thanking her for driving him to the wedding and saying, "It was lovely to see so much of your mother."

One memory that is very clear to me happened right after returning from our honeymoon. A week had passed since we'd been plunged into the pool of Holy Matrimony, and it felt like our brains were still playing catch-up. Suddenly, I had a husband, and I was a wife, a spouse, a "Mrs." It confused me, which became glaringly apparent when I answered a telemarketer's call. He asked to speak to the man of the house, to which I replied, "Let me get my fiancé...I mean my boyfriend....no, my husband..." The poor man probably thought I actually had all three.

The other event that I recall happened as the ceremony commenced and my attendants began to walk down the aisle. I started to fret quietly, hoping that I would remember my vows. My sister heard my mutterings and rounded on me. With the authority of an older sister who was also my matron of honor, she ordered in a crisp whisper, "No matter what happens from this point on...it's perfect." The details of our wedding day may have been lost in the stupor that was "getting married," but everything was perfect. The love and support Craig and I felt made a lasting impression, and of everything that happened that day, that's what mattered the most.

Marie Richmond's husband, Craig, tolerates being a recurring theme in her writing because he knows that if she can write about it, she can laugh about it. Suddenly, the fact that he has dingy earplugs, used Kleenex and a tactical flashlight stashed by his side of the bed becomes funny instead of irritating. This suits him just fine.

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