20 years ago today my then on-and-off again high school girlfriend and I sat at a table at the Dennys near the San Diego airport and over a plate of pancakes and decided to get married because we couldn't afford to live together without the Navy giving us a housing allowance.

Strictly speaking you had to request to get married as an E-2, but I found a loophole. I had just checked out at my TAD command and was not due to check in to C-school until the following Monday. I could just check in to my new command as a married sailor.

We got into Chaz, her 1994 Mazda 626 that we had just driven from central Texas to SD, and drove the 5 hours and change to Las Vegas. We got there at about 1 am.

Now back then, the Vegas county courthouse had a 24 hour marriage license window. They discontinued that at some point which is so stupid. But we got ours at about 2 am. We went to a couple marriage chapels before we settled on @ALittleWhiteWC

That place is famous for its drive-thru weddings but we didnt use it. I wore my SDWs and she wore a $20 white dress from TJ Maxx and espadrilles (her "something old"). We exchanged imaginary rings because we couldn't afford real ones yet.

After snapping some pictures with a Kodak disposable camera, we hopped back in the car and went to Treasure Island for breakfast. The license and ceremony together cost about 80 bucks. Then we drove for home.

We didn't even tell our parents until that December when we went home for Christmas, and even then only because her mom found her nametag from work in her purse with her married name on it.

Anyway, tell your kids to read this thread. Elope! It can work out great, and your parents will get over it eventually.

Seriously though, every day I love her more now than I ever have. She has survived so much (thanks universe) and put up with so much (thanks me) that it floors me. She deserves so much better but she is kind and charitable too.

Thank you for reading. As a treat, here is Dottie demolishing her dinner because it was two hours late. I was in a lot of trouble.