Ben and I were living in a crappy little apartment in North Wildwood, NJ.  Unlike normal shore winter weather, Wildwood had been declared an official "State of Emergency" a few days ago.  We were in the thick of the Blizzard of 1996.  Being a shore town, Wildwood was not set up for snow.  There were no snow plows, let alone preparation for 3 feet of snow.

On the morining of Tuesday January 9th, I woke up in a state of trepidation after a fretful nights sleep.  I watched the clock tick away, slowly and painfully, waiting for it to turn 9 o'clock.  That is when the court house was scheduled to open.  But being that we were still in a State of Emegency, there was no way to know if they would open or not.

Normally the courthouse being open was nothing to agonize over, but on this specific day it was important,  Very Important.  Today was the day of our secret American Wedding.  All our close family and friends knew that we were getting married in Scotalnd on Febraury 3rd; but, what no knew was that we were having a secret Amercian Wedding.  It was going to be us and two friends who were going to bare witness.  Ben and I fell so feverishly in love and even though most everyone who knew us was sure we were destined to fail - we knew better.  We wanted to be legally and bindly married in both our countries like we already were in our hearts.

So as I watched the ice from my window, the ticking of the clock seemed to take forever until it was 9 o'clock.  As soon as the hand turned 9, my fingers dialed the courthouse's phone number as quickly as my fingers could dial.  I felt the butterflies in my stomach dance around frantically until someone finally answered.

"Your open?" I asked hesistantly.

"Yes," a friendly voice answered.
And by 9:15 Ben and I and our two friends were at the courthouse.  We walked into the large courthouse that may have been physically empty but was filled with love.  Five minutes later, we were Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Lee.

And here we are 9 years later.  Happy Anniversary to us!