A Special July-

A month marking a milestone anniversary

My friend Andy, who taught me the game of chess, was among the first to congratulate my fiancéeVaune. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

July will always hold a special place in my memory. This month, my wife and I will celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary.

The pathway to my wedding day actually started several months prior to July.

Almost from the moment when my wife-to-be answered yes to my marriage proposal, the plans for that special day were underway. We started telling friends and family about the engagement.

Among the first people I spoke to outside of my family was my chess partner and good friend Andy.

Andy was an older man who lived with his daughter near the apartment I rented at the time.

His story about coming into my life and teaching me the game of chess was told in this space about four years ago

(https://www.mercedcountyevents.com/steve-newvine-1/the-next-move-and-the-one-after-that-and-the-one-after-that)

For several months, Andy and I played chess weekly at his daughter’s home. We enjoyed a great friendship during the time I got to know him as my career was getting started.

He would always ask me how my girlfriend was. When she became my fiancée, he was very happy for both of us.

With about one-hundred, fifty miles separating our parents from us, wedding planning was challenging in 1980. Here we are opening a gift from a family member. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

As Andy and others were told about our engagement, there was a growing list of things to do in preparation for the big day.

Plans started taking place in Ilion, New York where my bride-to-be had lived right up until she left for year three of her college education.

Details that needed to be worked out included scheduling the ceremony with the local Catholic church, reserving a reception venue, hiring a professional photographer, and a whole array of things that had to be done in preparation for the most important day in our lives.

Complicating matters was being about one-hundred, fifty miles away from my bride-to-be parents’ home.

By July, all of that planning was out of the way.

My niece Tina, brother Terry, and good friend Tim in a grainy photo from the rehearsal dinner the night before I was married. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

I can remember the month of July 1980 like it happened forty weeks ago rather than forty years.

I started the month in a new apartment that would become our first home as a married couple. We each gave up our individual apartments and rented an upstairs living space from a nice widow. I lived there for the three weeks leading up to our wedding.

My bride-to-be had moved back with her parents once the lease on her apartment had ended.

The wedding week was amazing. It was described in my 2018 book Stand By, Camera One:

There are a lot of things a married person remembers about his or her wedding day. I remember many details. There was the ceremony, the reception, and the honeymoon that come to mind immediately. But a special memory for me from that weekend was the rehearsal party held the Friday night before the wedding.

My dad used his membership in the Boonville Elks Club to secure the Ilion Elks lodge for the party. The local club catered a buffet held right after the rehearsal at the church. The Ilion lodge was in the same block as the church.

What made it stand out for me was the unifying of two families. Most of the bride’s relatives had never met the relatives from the groom’s side. The dinner, preceded by appetizers at my soon-to-be in-laws house, was a great start to what has now become a four-decade marriage.

The rehearsal party gave me a chance to greet my college buddies who made the trip. Ray was my first roommate from my first semester at Herkimer College.

At the time, he was working in his hometown of Albany. While we spoke on occasion over the previous four or five years, this was the first time I saw him in person since my sophomore year in college.

Tim is a friend I met at Syracuse. He was one of my ushers for the ceremony. Over the wedding weekend, my college friends Matt, Guf, and Rick were welcomed guests.

The rehearsal party got us all in the right mood for what was to come the next day. But for me, it really signified that two families were coming together thanks to the blessing of matrimony.

After Vaune and I said goodnight, I headed to a local motel where my family had booked some rooms for the out-of-town family members.

The motel had a small bar, so after saying goodnight to everyone, my brother Terry and my friend Tim went to the bar to have a “farewell to bachelorhood” bottle of Genesee Beer. When we finished the beer, we all headed back to our rooms to go to sleep.

That was the closest thing I had to a bachelor’s party. But I never felt as though I missed out on anything.

I was surrounded by family and good friends. I was about to get married.

It was a very happy time leading up to the most important day in my life.

All of this happened in July, forty years ago.

I’ll never forget that incredible month.

The month of July will always hold a special place in my memory.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

Stand By, Camera One is now available in a hard-cover edition at