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Ashley Balfour

Mrs. Herr

Narrative Essay

September 27, 2010

A Special Day

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”-Aristotle. Getting married is

an extraordinary occasion. No matter how big or how small the event, it is how you make the

experience special, after all, this is your day not anyone else’s. Everything that happens on a

wedding day is a significant experience from the events leading up to, the actual ceremony, and

the proceedings afterwards.

It was mid morning that Saturday, April 7th, 2007. This was the day I was going to marry

Earlene, my girlfriend of 2 years. We were going to have our ceremony on the beach across the

street from our Ocean View apartment. It was not going to be a huge flamboyant wedding,

more of small event which included a few friends and a wedding commissioner. While Earlene

was out at the local salon getting her hair done I was Ironing my shirt over and over to make

sure I got every possible crease out just to make sure I looked extra perfect on that day. I

continued to get ready, put a hand full of gel in my hair to get those spikes I always like,

engulfed myself with my smell good products, and even made sure my gig line was straight. I

was amazed when I saw Earlene walk through the front door, her hair looked stunning. She

then proceeded to finish getting ready herself. The final result was top notch. Earlene looked

absolutely fabulous, and I could not stop thinking of how lucky I was to marry such a beautiful

woman. While we were waiting for our friends and Miss Cynthia Smith, the wedding
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commissioner, to arrive I looked outside our sitting room window to only notice snowflakes

falling. We both could not believe it; snow was falling in Virginia that time of year! As the

flakes fell, the temperature also dropped and the wind started to pick up, Mother Nature had

defeated us. There was no way we were going to have our beach wedding we had both talked

about for months prior. Since our apartment was a cozy one bedroom, with hard woods floors

throughout, we decided to turn the sitting room into the chapel for the day. We went on to

move furniture and light candles to get the perfect atmosphere for the occasion. Our friends

started to show up, four in all, which consisted of two couples, Casey and Sara, and Alex and

Kristen. They placed gifts on our table and began to take pictures of us all, so we would have

visual evidence of the day. I then received a phone call from Miss Cynthia Smith informing me

that she had arrived.

I opened the door, and standing there was Miss Cynthia Smith, a fairly short African

American lady in her late forties. She entered our sanctuary and introduced herself to us, and

without any hesitation she asked us if we were ready. With my nerves starting to escalate,

Earlene and I stood in position at our temporary altar. The location of our Altar was against the

sitting room wall, directly under a collective piece of art which was a tribute to Bob Marley.

With everyone in position Miss Smith then started the ceremony. She opened with the

traditional “we are gathered here today…” and went on to ask if the was any reason why

Earlene and myself should not be joined in matrimony, at that moment I had to look over at our

friends to see if anyone was going to say anything, but only smiles and thumbs up returned to

my sight. I looked back at my soon-to-be wife, and we continued to gaze in each other’s eyes;

both of us had the biggest smiles on our face. While Miss Smith recited the poem titled “Love
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is”, tears of joy started to roll down Earlene’s cheeks. I could feel the happiness in my heart, my

right leg started shaking uncontrollably, and my sight started to become blurry due my eyes

filling up. In the mist of camera flashes I could feel the tears flowing, it felt great. It didn’t even

matter there were witnesses to see. I was filled with joy. The service went on, we both

exchanged rings and said the infamous “I do’s”, and before you could shake a stick we were

pronounced husband and wife. There were cheers of joy from our friends as they took pictures

of the new Mr. and Mrs. Balfour. Miss Smith congratulated us, and wished us well. We returned

with thanks and gratitude as she gave us our marriage papers and departed. Next we opened

our gifts from our friends, which consisted of engraved silver champagne glasses and a bottle of

Dom Perignon. We popped open the bottle of champagne and started to celebrate.

Celebration was going to be the theme of the rest of the day, and celebrate is what we

did. After we had finished up the bottle of high dollar champagne, we all decided to meet at

The Cheesecake Factory in Virginia Beach Town Center. There was about a thirty minute wait

time, during which Casey, Sara, Alex, Kristen, Earlene, and I placed ourselves at a table in the

bar area and ordered drinks, all ordering different cocktails. I had one of my favorites, a Long

Island Ice Tea. Our table was ready and we went on to eat our meals, Cajun chicken for Earlene

and medium cooked steak for myself. By the time we finished eating and socializing it was

starting to turn into nighttime. With Sara as our designated driver for the night we all headed

towards Granby Street. Granby Street is one of the main roads that go through the middle of

Downtown Norfolk, very old and historical yet full of bars and clubs. We started off at one of

the streets popular restaurants which turned in to a club at night fall, and that was

Guadalajara’s. Upon arriving at Guadalajara’s we met up with two more couples, Chris and
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Karina, and Joe and Adrianna. The constant celebrating continued with the drinking, dancing,

and laughing. All these activities persisted to the next club, Fahrenheit. The night started to

come to an end, still mentally full of excitement, I was physically worn out. Casey and Sara gave

us a ride home, and dropped us off outside our Ocean View apartment and this successfully

concluded our day. I went to bed believing I was the luckiest man alive and how I would not

change a thing about that April 7th even if I was given the opportunity.

Everything that happens on a wedding day is a significant experience from the events

leading up to, the actual ceremony, and the proceedings afterwards. The events that took

place that April 7th I will never forget, everything that happened that day was special and

meaningful to me. The feelings I encountered that day were mind-boggling and breathtaking. I

am proud to be a husband, and every day I look forward to spending the rest of my life with my

wife, Earlene.