12 Years, Untold

It was a beautiful spring Wednesday in Champaign-Urbana. The flowers hadn’t quite bloomed yet, and the trees were just beginning to bud. My oldest friend since I was five was coming to visit for the weekend, and as it happened, Donald’s friend Tessa, from back home in Canada, was also studying at the University of Illinois. We were neighbors with Tessa, so we all spent quite a bit of time together.

Donald was in grad school pursuing a degree in Aerospace Engineering, which most likely meant a future job in the U.S. He already had plans to continue on for his Ph.D. (which he did!), but knowing how long the immigration process takes, we figured we’d better get started on making this guy a citizen as soon as we could. The process takes years!

So… long story short…though I’m sorry to anyone who doesn’t already know…today, April 17, is our wedding anniversary. We’ve officially been married for 12 years!

To be honest, I don’t even remember what date we told people we got married. I know we said it was sometime in July of 2014, because that’s when we were heading to our first citizenship interview in Chicago.

We didn’t tell anyone at first. We got “engaged” and planned to do the wedding thing like normal, while already being married. Not that unheard of, actually. Donald’s parents knew and Tessa and Megan knew too. But that was it.

Well… except for Matt. I eventually told my besties Matt and Andrew in August of 2013, and Matt has a big mouth, so of course he had already told most of the people we knew anyway. So much for keeping secrets!

Technically, we got engaged in March 2014. That’s when we picked out a ring and shared the news with family. But by the time July rolled around, I was already over any kind of wedding planning. We were paying for green card applications, citizenship paperwork, and all the other expenses that come with that. With my $12/hr job and Donald’s teaching assistant position, there was just no way we were going to throw a wedding on top of all of that.

I called my mom and told her I didn’t think I could plan a wedding anymore. And then I just… told her. “We’re already married.” She was surprised, of course, but not too surprised, it does sound like something I would do.

So instead of a big day, I bought the only white dress I could find off the clearance rack at Urban Outfitters on campus. We went to the county clerk’s office, picked up a marriage license, and our friend Tessa got ordained online. The next day, on a Wednesday afternoon in the University of Illinois Arboretum, we got married.

And that’s that.

Twelve years later, we’re still here. Still married and still glad we never paid for a wedding.