Why we chose to get married on September 11th

The moment when we first saw each other on our wedding day.

When we were planning our wedding we had lots of people who felt that it was their place to tell us why we shouldn't get married on September 11th.  This included everyone from friends who were confused by it to the worker at Office Max who copied our programs.  Since today marks the 10th year since the attacks on the World Trade Center and our 2nd anniversary I felt it was time to talk about why we chose to get married on that day.

When the attacks on the World Trade Center happened on September 11, 2001, I was a freshman at Hope College and Andrew was a senior at Flushing High School.  We did not know each other yet.

When Andrew's mother passed away on September 11, 2005, I was in my first year of teaching at Lafayette Jefferson High School and Andrew was a senior at Hope College.  We had spent a lot of time together and decided that dating long distance didn't make much sense for us.  However, his mother's unexpected death showed us how much we cared about each other.  In the days following his mother's funeral Andrew told me he loved me for the first time.

When we were deciding on a wedding date, we knew that we wanted to get married at The Mavris and we started looking at the dates that they had open.  When we had our first meeting with John Mavris, he mentioned that they had Friday September 11th open.  We both dismissed the date saying "Who would want to get married on that day?"  We started looking at other dates they had available later in the fall.

My favorite picture from our wedding.

But when we were talking about it later, Andrew and I both agreed that we didn't have any problem getting married on September 11th and even liked the idea because it would be a way of honoring his mother and of creating a positive memory to go hand in hand with the memories of the attacks on the World Trade Center and his mother's death.  It was our way of moving on while still remembering.