Wow! It was quite a wedding! Even if I do say so myself! 🙂 Mostly planned by Ginger.
The Wedding in Photos
Link to the gallery of Wedding Photos which are copies of copies, so not the best. Ginger took the good album with her which I did not have to include here.
My Description of the Wedding
Because Ginger was a member of First Baptist Dallas, she qualified to ask for the famous senior pastor, W.A. Criswell, to conduct the wedding which he did only a limited number of per year. I think she told his secretary that I worked for the Southern Baptist Convention and maybe that influenced him, who knows? But he did it in the beautiful Slaughter Chapel with the big sanctuary far too big for our number of friends. But we almost filled the chapel!
Mom, Dad and Bonnie were coming but not Jerry whom I would have used for best man. Since he could not come, I asked my seminary best friend Eric Williams to be best man and another seminary friend & also from Ouachita, Harold Harrison, to be a groomsman. Ginger used our two sisters as the bridesmaids with her sister the maid of honor. Since she was making her on wedding dress she gave those two a pattern and material for them to make or have made their bridesmaid dresses. Of course us guys rented tuxedos.
Having been a youth minister in two Dallas churches and one in Miami, I wanted to involve youth from all three churches. I had one boy from each church serve as an usher. Plus Charles McCloud from Hillcrest played the organ which was really Ginger’s choice but he was one of “my youth” also! It was an interesting group! 🙂
Following tradition, my Dad paid for the rehearsal dinner which we had the night before wedding at El Fenix Mexican Restaurant in downtown Dallas. (It was a chain with locations all over the Southwest.) It was fun with good food and Mexican Music.
My friends later that night came to the house where we were staying and painted up Ginger’s red VW Beetle with “Just Married” and tin cans, etc. since I had flown there and was without my car. The next morning early I took it to a car wash and cleaned it up before the wedding since we were flying out for our honeymoon in New Orleans. We did not tell anyone who was picking us up after the wedding (one of Ginger’s cousins or uncles) so that person did not get his car decorated though some people were ready to do it! 🙂
I had and maybe still do somewhere a sound recording of the wedding ceremony, but never had it transcribed so don’t have that to include here and I don’t know how to add a sound recording to a web page. It was a beautiful wedding and reception afterwards with beautiful white wedding cake and chocolate groom’s cake that everyone liked. Someone froze a couple of pieces for us to take with us to Memphis after the honeymoon.
I don’t remember if they threw birdseed or rice on us as we left quickly when her uncle pulled up in front of the church and we sped off to the airport for our flight.
The Honeymoon
Whew! We were both exhausted when we arrived at the airport and got on the plane. But the stewardesses were so nice and kind to us! They treated us like real VIPs, moving us up to First Class seats (since there was space there) and served us complimentary Champagne. I don’t remember if they served lunch, but not needed since we had a big special dinner in New Orleans.
I reserved a special room in the Holiday Inn French Quarters (at right) and had ordered a dozen yellow roses to be placed in the room. Everything was very nice!
I don’t remember a lot about tourist things we did beyond walking around the French Quarters gawking 🙂 and eating in neat restaurants including breakfast at Brennan’s which was famous then for breakfast and of course beignets at CafĂ© du Monde one morning. I don’t now remember our cool dinner restaurants, but at least one was in an old house and maybe some recommended to us.
And of course we experienced some cool Bourbon Street New Orleans music at night. 🙂 I made no photos then, but the photo at left I made on a 2010 trip there as representative of what we heard on our honeymoon.
Only photo actually from the honeymoon is of a post card of hotel, but here it is in the PHOTO GALLERY: 1970 New Orleans Honeymoon along with a photo of the painted VW. 🙂
Dad either paid for or helped pay for the honeymoon for which I was thankful! 🙂
Our Return to the Real World
We flew back to Dallas and I drove us in her VW Beetle to Memphis including her little dog Susie, all in one day I think. We may have stopped in Arkansas at Mom & Dad’s but I don’t really remember. I had rented a nice little house in East Memphis and put what furniture I had in it. She of course soon added her feminine touch. And I was back to office hours at the Brotherhood Commission or on trips. I tried to include Ginger in on as many of the trips as possible, but she eventually got tired of some trips boring to her and of course I had to pay for her flight if we flew.
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Or FAMILY OF MARRIAGE page
Or FAMILY page
¡Pura Vida!