He called me on June 11th to tell me that he would be flying out the next day! He said he would arrive June 13th because it would take a whole day to travel. However, he did not calculate the time difference. I called the airline to check his arrival time. He would arrive the very next day—JUNE 12TH! I hung up the phone and screamed! I was so excited! That was a busy day! I got my hair and nails done. I called everyone to tell them that my fiancé whom scarcely any of my friends had actually met was finally coming! I think some were beginning to doubt his existence!
On June 12th I waited anxiously at the international terminal. I watched person after person walk up the ramp and embrace someone they had been longing to see. I couldn’t take my eyes off the entry way. Soon Gana would be here!
Finally I saw this man with a baseball cap on, pushing a cart with two big duffle bags and carrying a huge bouquet of roses. He ran to me. I ran to him. We were back in each other’s arms again!
The customs officer had sympathy on a lovesick man who hadn’t seen his fiancée in a year and three months and let him bring roses from Beijing to me.
We walked, holding hands, giggling, and gazing at one another back to my parents’ van. Serena, walking behind us, cried because she recognized that fresh in love feeling.
According to the stipulations of Gana’s K1 visa we had only 90 days to get married and then file for a change of immigration status or he could be deported. So, we set our wedding for August 12—60 days after his arrival in America.
Those were busy, but precious times! Gana got a job landscaping with the company my brother worked for. And Gana and I planned our wedding, reception, honeymoon, and visas in all our spare time. My dad teased us that when a marriage has to begin with a lawyer, we were in for trouble!
A dear friend took our engagement and wedding pictures as a gift for us. A pastor friend of my dad’s let us use his beautiful old church for free. My brother’s boss let us hold the reception in his lovely backyard. My best friend’s mother prepared all the food for our reception. My grandmother sewed all the bridesmaids’ dresses. My aunt and uncle let us honeymoon at their secluded cabin in Carmel for free! And on and on I could go. By the day of our wedding, we had all we needed and more. We spent only about $2,000 on our wedding—everything included! God was so very good!
The night before the wedding, my cousins (the same ones who drove us around to find the Chinese Embassy when we were trying to get to Mongolia!) made a huge Mexican food feast. We laughed with friends and had a great time.
That evening my girlfriends sat around my living room putting together the favors for the reception and watching a poorly done Jane Austen movie.
I stayed up so late that night talking to my sister. She gave me a precious card and a collage of pictures of our life together as sisters. It made me cry! I finally went to sleep about 2am.
At 6am I woke up and got ready to go to the salon to have my hair done. I kept wondering what Gana was doing with himself all morning. I found out later he played my brother’s Nintendo non-stop to keep his mind off the wedding.
Right before the wedding, I took off my "purity ring" (a ring my dad gave me on my eighteenth birthday where I pledged to save myself for my husband) and my dad delivered it to Gana in the groom's room.
In our wedding invitation I asked each person to bring a long stemmed flower that would create my bouquet, symbolizing the part they have played in our lives to bring us to this place. I didn’t anticipate about 300 people at the wedding and a bouquet the size of a redwood.
Larry and Janet VanCleef. We ate dinner at their house the night we took Gana back to Arizona.
Larry performed the beginning of the wedding ceremony.
Our wedding was so special. We both cried. A friend performed the first part of the ceremony and my dad performed the second part and pronounced us “man and wife.”
Gana lifted my veil and our lips touched for the first time! It was in fact, my first kiss, ever! Every one in the church jumped to their feet and cheered! After that rather long and passionate first kiss Gana hugged each of his groomsman and my grandfather who rushed the stage to congratulate us himself. I gave a high-five to my maid of honor, my sister.
We spent our wedding night at a lodge in Parkfield, the official “Earthquake Capital of the World” located on the San Andreas Fault.
If any single people are reading this and wondering if we were in our right minds saving hand-holding until engagement, saving kissing until the wedding and saving everything for the honeymoon, let Gana and I assure you that it was worth it.
God was and is so faithful to us. We definitely took a road less traveled on our way to marriage. I will not lie and say that this has made our marriage so easy. Because the truth is that no matter whom you marry, you marry a sinner. But, looking back and seeing the hand of God on our lives is still a blessing that we draw from.
Thanks for reading this love story, though it’s taken me so many months to tell it.
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