Our Wedding

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Kate and I were married on August 2, 1980 — a Saturday afternoon of the Civic Holiday weekend outside in a garden by the Ivey Business School on the campus of the University of Western Ontario (where I was a PhD student in Philosophy, where Kate later got her PhD in Psychology).

Kate was a half hour late for the service and a little shower came up afterwards. Both odd omens but it seems to have worked out well.

We had an afternoon reception for our family, friends and guests at Somerville House and we partied that evening at the Blue Boot/Cedar Lounge with Alison Preston (Kate's maid of honor) and Neil Farnsworth (the photographer) where the infamous punk band NFG were playing. It was a hoot!

The photo at left is one of a group of wedding photos taken at a demolition site by our friend Neil Farnsworth (he was a classmate of mine). We used another photo from that day for our wedding announcement in the London Free Press. The paper was somewhat reluctant to post our announcement, "We can't see your eyes", "It will cost you extra", etc. but did agree. For many years afterwards we'd have people, who we didn't know at all, come up to us and say "We have your wedding announcement posted on our fridge!" We were "fab" back then -- or so we tell the young ones.

We met on the May 24th weekend (aka Victoria Day) through Kate's brother Gord who was also a classmate of mine. Kate was living in Vancouver B.C. at the time (that's a long plane ride away) where she was working on a PhD in Psychology at Simon Fraser. She was visiting her parents (Jack & Doreta) who were adding an addition to their cottage north of Kingston. Gord had invited me along to help hammer nails. Kate and I had met briefly a couple of years before when Gord and his wife Monica first came to London but we count the May 24th weekend of 1980 as our first "real" meeting. Somehow we clicked and some 10 weeks later we were married.

"Still crazy after all these years."