Happily Ever After

by Donna MacMeans

There's a scene in Shrek 3 where Prince Charming stumbles in a bar of fairy tale villians and rallys them to rebell with the battle cry "Everyone deserves a happily ever after!"

When writing romance, we try to do just that - give the deserving characters a proper happily ever after. In fairy tales and romance, this traditionally translates into matrimonial bliss. In real life we know these two concepts marriage + bliss do not necessarily go together. Then again, sometimes they do.

I thought it might be appropriate on this day in June to recognize a few banditas who found a way to make their own happily ever afters a reality. Now a disclaimer - these are not all the happily married banditas - just the ones brave enough to send me a photo.

Okay, so this isn't a bandita. I thought I'd share a little background on June weddings. As Joanie could tell us, this is the Roman goddess, Juno, who coincidentally is also the goddess of marriage. Thus, it was thought that getting married in the month of June was considered lucky.




As you can see from the photo of her statue, Juno was armed and wore a goatskin cloak, which was the favored garment of Roman soldiers on campaign. Perhaps the Romans were trying to tell us marriage is war.


However as a veteran of 35 years of wedded bliss, I've found the weapons are best left checked at the door - at least, at our house.



This is me. Check out the hat. I never was a white veil kind of woman, and the long blond hair. I'm afraid it's a lot shorter now. My husband had long hair as well in the fashion of the 70s, that's gone as well.


Let's see if you can figure out these others.




I've been assured that this is not Colin Firth, but -- I don't know. I see a resemblance.

Here's another Bandita with a husband on one knee. I'm not sure if my husband got down on one knee these days, he'd be able to get up again without help. Those were the days!



I think this photo could easily be on the cover of a romance novel. Can you tell who this lovely bandita is? Shame we can't see her shoes. That would be a definite clue.





Here's another on the right. I must compliment you ladies on managing to get your husbands to wear a black tuxedo and not blue. When all is said and done though, the color of the tuxedo has little impact on the lasting nature of a successful marriage.

Anna Sugden provided the next photos as testament that happily ever afters do exist. These are her in-laws, both on their wedding day and on their 60th wedding anniversary.



Times have changed, but the love still grows.

So tell me about your happily ever after, or favorite wedding story. I have a copy of The Trouble with Moonlight for a poster.

Oh and one last photo, of two people who hadn't a clue about what life would hold, but figured they could face anything as long as they faced it together.

Yup, my name is Donna and I write ROMANCE.