Thursday, September 25, 2014

Fifty years ago today, Mike and Jeannie ran away . . .

. . . and got married! I've heard that when you run away to get married, it's called eloping. So I guess that's what they did, but with one small twist: they took Jeannie's family with them.

They were married in this church in the small town of Brewton, Alabama, which is a few dozen miles up the trail from Jeannie's hometown of Pensacola, Florida:


To be more precise, the church is in a suburb of Brewton called Burnt Corn. The minister who officiated was a man named Milton G. Williams.

I tried to find some pictures of the wedding ceremony, but there aren't very many, and most of them are showing their age. But these will give you an idea of what it was like. For starters, here's the one where the bride gets given away by her father. From left to right, the people in this first picture are Mike and Jeannie; Jeannie's dad, Mr. E. C. Jernigan; and Rev. Williams:


The ceremony proceeds with Jeannie's brother, John, serving as Mike's best man; then Mike and Jeannie; followed by John's fiancée, Carol, who was Jeannie's bridesmaid; and Rev. Williams:


Once the vows are exchanged, the groom gets to kiss the bride.


Then after M & J were officially hitched, the wedding party posed for this one:


The arm and head in the lower-right corner belong to Jeannie's sister, Suzie. M says there used to be more wedding pictures floating around, and if he can find them we might add some later. I did come up with another photo of the happy couple that was stuck in an album near the one of the church. I don't really think it was from the wedding, though, because for one thing Jeannie's hair looks shorter. But I'll throw it in for good measure. Who knows, maybe it was from the honeymoon.


Boy, I'll bet when they were newlyweds, M and J never dreamed that one day their faithful dog would be writing about it in a blog. I'm just darn glad I got the chance to.

Mike and Jeannie, let me close by wishing you all the best on what I've learned is your golden wedding anniversary. I love you guys a whole bunch!

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Happy Anniversary to me Ma and me Da. I love yous guys!

Fred said...

Happy anniversary you crazy kids! A special congratulations on it being your 50th! Congratulations!!!