I've stayed (conspicuously?) absent from this thread so far.

Part of the reason for that is pure self-preservation, my 'wife' & I are not married, we are common-law, for 10 happy years now. The hints, however, are getting louder & louder, from her, her family, and my parents. I am divorced, she has never been married.

To date my position has always been "I didn't need a piece of paper from somebody else to tell me how much I love her." and for a while it kept things quiet.

However, there's always one of those isn't there, with health issues she and others have been suggesting marriage would be, if nothing else, good legal protection for her should there be a problem with my health again.

I suggested a compromise, it was accepted, we will be getting married on the beach in The Bahamas, with just our parents (we still have both sets) and anyone else who wants to pay their own way to get themselves there to witness the happy occasion. A dear friend of ours who owns a waterfront bar/restaurant there, where my wife sings when we are down there, has insisted on hosting a dinner for any who attend, on him. This is 'payback' he says for my wife singing at his daughters wedding and reception last year.

So, the budget will likely be under $1,000.00 and the music, trust me, will be glorious, and free.

Wait a minute, I will by then be married, disregard that last comment about free, I doubt anything will ever be 'free' again. .

As an aside, about the various comments about being brought up 'properly', when I was very young I lived on the family farm, the village where we lived was named after our family farm, I dared not misbehave, every person I saw, and who saw me, knew who I was and knew who my father was, and knew my whole family. When I was young I recall my grandfather saying to me that it had taken the entire family hundreds of years to earn their reputation, and it would only take one stupid mistake by a single person to ruin it all. I can still hear him saying "You only come into the world with your name and your family, and that's all you're going to leave with, so you'd better make the best of it while you're here.".

I was brave enough to volunteer for the armed forces, and to fly combat aircraft, I would never have had the 'stuff' to do something that would reflected badly on the family.

Best of luck.

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