By the time we were both seventeen years old we had already been 'going steady' as the quaint vernacular of the time had it, meaning that we were completely committed to one another, for the past three years. We saw our future together. We wanted to be together. We thought it a fairly good idea to just leave together for some unknown destination -- an elopement -- and arrange for a civil marriage. No one other than ourselves need know. In that marriage we would discover the deep satisfaction of having formally bound ourselves to one another.

I can't recall how it happened, it was so long ago, but our tenuous, tentative plans were somehow revealed to our parents. Who were scandalized. They had obviously envisioned a proper marriage, a social event of a type expected in our ethnic community; a religious ceremony - although my parents were not religious and my parents-in-law-to-be were, only in the most loose sense. Followed by a catered dinner to which 'close' friends and family members were invited, and finally a 'reception' where elaborate baked goods and a giant wedding cake, music and dancing entertained all.

Marriage? Our tender age mitigated against it, they insisted. And it should be done properly. First an engagement declared, and when a year had passed, then the marriage could commence. We were unhappy about this, but realized our youthful state did not favour our decision, and the attendant details. I was working by then but my then-boyfriend was still attending school. We hadn't the financial wherewithal to be independent. It simply wasn't practical.

We reluctantly shelved our impetuosity, and carried on as we always had, having consulted with our parents on both sides to arrive at what might seem to them to be a suitable marriage date, and that turned out to be June 5, 1955. And the venue was chosen, and the details of launching such a venture undertaken. A lovely day, to be sure, but a day both of us cringed at the prospect of being front and centre within, neither of us liking the idea of the kind of ceremonious pomp and expense such an event always resulted in. It wasn't what we had envisaged for ourselves.

He and I went to a local jewellery store, looked around at engagement marriage ring sets, and after awhile decided on a design we both liked. And we put a deposit on the set, making arrangements for monthly payments until the full price was achieved, and we would be able to claim it for ourselves, in time for the ceremony. An independent decision we felt fully capable of engaging in. It was, after all, our own life and future we were planning.

When my mother-in-law-to-be discovered what we had done, she was emphatic that we return to the jewellery store and cancel our arrangements. We were to go to her choice of jewellery store and there find a suitable replacement, and make similar arrangements to pay off the set of our choice there, through her; we would give her the monthly $5 and she would see the store was paid. We felt entirely intimidated, and dutiful children, we did just that. I mourned the loss of my preferred rings, and never did very much admire the ones we felt coerced into selecting in abandonment of our own choice.

Just as well none of this ever impacted on us and our shared life together other than in the most peripheral of ways; unfond memories of 'our' wedding, though not of our marriage, and everything related to the event other than the permanence of our love and devotion to one another.