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" FROM THE START, we agreed there&amp;#039;d be no wedding. We&amp;#039;d be eighty-year-olds with fifteen kids and a goat herd of grandkids before we got married. They&amp;#039;d have to force us to the altar in a wheelchair and walker. No thank you. We&amp;#039;d live in the here and now without rings to bind us or the authority of some churchly hocus-pocus to confuse things.  Sara and I had met in grad school, ended up at a party one night, and while everyone was playing charades, we bailed out into a winter storm and started pummeling each other with snowballs. After getting the worst of it, I raised my hands to surrender, and she stood in all that white downfall, a knot of energy, strands of wet hair matted to her brow, eyes glittering ferociously, a smile lifting her off the ground, and then she fired another one right at my forehead.  That&amp;#039;s when I knew I was a goner. And so we made this life together, moved across the country and back, traveled the world. Seven years passed and, even as our early defiances softened, life kept hurtling. Sara&amp;#039;s mother died in a scuba-diving accident, and on one of the murky nights just after, lying sleeplessly in Sara&amp;#039;s childhood bed, in her childhood home, when everything in the world seemed broken, she turned to me and said, &amp;quot;We should have gotten married.&amp;quot; And I said, &amp;quot;Yeah,&amp;quot; but there was nothing more to say. Without her mother, it seemed unthinkable now.  Here&amp;#039;s the thing about grief: It doesn&amp;#039;t go away. But after a time, it changes a little. It loses a few electrons and allows life back in. And eventually it requires an equal and opposite reaction. A single moment that reminds you why you were put on this earth.  Last summer, Sara had a dream that she was a stripper named Nevada Plum, living in a roadside motel. Nevada Plum&amp;#039;s life was strange and titillating; boyfriends came and went, and the money was pretty good. I had my own recurring dream: that I was swimming around the world with a pod of dolphins.  &amp;quot;But I don&amp;#039;t want to be Nevada Plum,&amp;quot; Sara said.  And I&amp;#039;m tired of being a dolphin, I thought. I just want you. In September, with little warning, we eloped, with our families--about twenty-four of us in all--to a big, funky cottage on the island of Islesboro, in a place called Dark Harbor, Maine, a few hours up the coast from where we live. The cottage had fifteen bedrooms and a huge, shambling back porch overlooking the ocean. Sara and I arrived early to set things up, wandered the big house in giddy anticipation, and that night saw a shooting star that came down so bright and near we thought it was the sun.  Then, on Sunday afternoon, the porch was wrapped in flowers: purple delphiniums, button daisies, yellow snapdragons. A bluish fog rolled in off the ocean, floating through the tamaracks and pine trees, and candles were lit. The first time I saw Sara in her wedding dress and realized that she was coming for me, I thought for a moment that it was just another dream. Yes, I&amp;#039;m sure a man never forgets what his wife looks like that first time he sets eyes on her in an ivory gown, what it feels like to stand where his father once stood and his father before that and all fathers forever back through time, but then I&amp;#039;ll never have to try to remember. Every moment lived after that one is attached to it. The ceremony flew by too quickly, and suddenly she was pushing a gold band on my finger and I was pushing her mother&amp;#039;s wedding ring on hers and we were dazzled by them, our fingers, wearing these rings. And then we were man and wife, wife and man, husband and woman, woman and husband. Hitched! We cocktailed and hors-d&amp;#039;oeuvred and sat down at two big tables and toasted and ate. And then we danced. Just pointed a couple of speakers out on the porch and poured music into the salt air. There&amp;#039;s something about seeing your brand-new father-in-law on the dance floor, swiveling to the music, yelling the words: That&amp;#039;s the way, un-huh, un-huh, I like it. . .Something wonderful and edifying. Something that makes you feel as if you&amp;#039;ve arrived at the beginning of your future. And so we went on like this for some time--and might still be going on, had the hour not turned from late to early--and one by one, and two by two, we were carried by the fog up to bed. Remembering it now, I half believe the angels came down for a little while just to watch us, to see what joy really is. It was the best that ever was. I&amp;#039;m here to tell you: It was the very best. For the rest of list, make sure to read Esquire&amp;#039;s 175 Things A Man Should Do Before He Dies. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a4702/175-things-get-married-1299/>