It’s our 33rd wedding anniversary today!
We met in university in Canada but didn’t really like each other. We both ended up in Japan after graduation on a teaching program and started dating part way through out first year there. He lived in Northern Japan and I was in Southern Japan so we would meet partway. We saw each other for a total of 30 days over a period of a year before he proposed to me. We had just spent the weekend together and he returned to Northern Japan and couldn’t wait to see me to propose to me in person so he did it over the phone.
This is a photo of our wedding in Northern Japan. The city put on the wedding for us. All we had to do was buy my wedding dress and show up. We got married in a Catholic Church by a priest. Neither of us is Catholic and it was the first wedding that he officiated. The town bought a bell for the church so we could ring it.
We changed into Japanese clothes partway at the reception. There were about 100 guests of which we invited about 10. The others were invited by the city. People who didn’t know us, made congratulatory speeches and had to look at the banner behind us to confirm our names.
It was all filmed on NHK TV.