May Tablescape thirty-seven years in the making: Wedding Anniversary that all adds up!

This month's tablescape is, admittedly. more about the people than the serving ware, but we've included some pieces that are as vintage as the wedding its commemorating. To be more specific, today, my husband, Chris and I celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary!

We, like many in quarantine times, have been organizing closets, desks and cupboards, and while "thinning the contents", we've also uncovered a few great finds including a box of wedding napkins and the cake topper from our wedding reception almost forty years ago.

Our story began just a year before our wedding, when, in a tale as old as time, Systems Programmer meets Assistant-to-the-Auditor at a financial services company in a run-down- theater-turned-office building in downtown Detroit and, amid spreadsheets and Assembler, fall in love. 

We officially met in April of 1982, a week after my 24th birthday. Although I was only four months on the job, we had an even newer staff auditor on deck who needed help figuring out the computer systems.  Chris was appointed by his Data Processing manager to come down and assist my colleague, Wade,  because, as I later learned, my soon-to-be-boyfriend was not only an IT whiz, but had good communication skills as well.  Since  my office was the gateway to the Auditing Department, I was the first to see anyone who entered, and when Chris walked in, I was quickly distracted from making entries into my spreadsheet (yes, this was before Excel so I was actually writing numbers into a ledger book).  

And, like many great romances, ours began with those three little words: "Is Wade in?"

The short version of the rest of the story is that by August of that year we were engaged and had set May 28th, 1983 as our wedding date. We were married at St. Columban Church in Birmingham and our reception was at the Troy Hilton, the latter, like manual spreadsheets, no longer exists. But, in its day, it was beautiful and that special Saturday in May, with one hundred and twenty-five guests, we kicked-off our marriage with a plated dinner, champagne, a live band, and a white cake decorated in pink and purple flowers, topped with a miniature brunette bride and a fair-haired groom, and  served up with personalized violet-colored napkins. The last two items, along with our original toasting glasses,  are now part of our tablescape today.

It's been thirty-seven years filled with three awesome children, half a dozen jobs, five residences, two dogs and more laughs and great times than I could ever account for in any ledger - computer or manual. 

Tonight, we'll toast to many more years together, to love, to marriage and, yes, with much appreciation, to Wade!