We’re starting a new thing! I’ve begun a romance-writer blog party where, once a month, my writer friends and I will all be blogging on the same topic on the same day — we’ll be talking about things all romance writers love to talk about: reading, writing, and romantic things!

Our first one is about our wedding day highlights.

We picked this topic because our friend Kat Cantrell has TWO books coming out at Harlequin this month, both involving weddings: From Ex to Eternity and From Fake to Forever. You can see them at the bottom of this post, plus check Kat out here.

And now … Here we go: My wedding day highlight. …

Here’s us on our wedding day:

Dang, we were young. I had a beautiful wedding day. I really did. We got married in November because I love the cool crisp air in November and the normally sunny days. It was Thanksgiving weekend, 1989, and kind of the cusp of the holidays. Our colors were black and red, and everything looked gorgeous and holidayish. But the highlights of my wedding day — wouldn’t you know — were things you can’t plan at all. The highlights were things people said, a dance with someone special, my guests getting along in a “worlds colliding” way. Plus there was this guy:

J.R. Taylor was the best man in our wedding, and — like in the photo above — he was cracking us up all day.

He was Chris’ best friend. He’d flown in from Montana, where he’d been living after finishing his stint in the army as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. At the wedding, he brought a flask for Chris to calm his nerves (a spirit they’d enjoyed as buds in the past), gave a great toast, danced with the prettiest girls, and just all-around had a great time.

At the end of the wedding, we had done a crazy complicated car-switch because my dad had ordered us a surprise limo (Yay, Dad!) from the church to the reception. So some of us were without cars at the end of the night. And J.R. didn’t have a way home from the reception, and he’d come alone. So somehow we offered to give him a ride. Yep, in our “getaway car” with the windows all decorated “Just Married!” Problem was, Chris and J.R. were smashed by the end of the reception. And I hadn’t drunk at all. So I was voted the designated driver.

So … yes, me in my full-skirted gown and my ’80s headband veil, driving the getaway car out of the reception at 2 a.m. with what looked like TWO grooms. …

And then as we started driving, my two drunkards started complaining that they were “huuuuuungry, Laurie, huuuuuuungry,” and they wanted to go to In-N-Out. So I laughed and pulled into the one in our home town. Which is like the ONLY In-N-Out in Southern California that isn’t a drive-through (because of an old no-drive-through rule in Placentia).

So the three of us piled out of the car and walked in and ordered hamburgers — the bride (yep, still with her veil on!), and “two grooms”! We got a lot of attention at In-N-Out. But we had so much fun. And that will forever be my wedding day highlight.

(Want to read more about J.R.? I wrote a post about him here.)

Want to see what all my writer friends wrote about their wedding day highlights? Here are the participants. All of us are Golden Heart 2012 Firebirds. You can click on their names to go to their blogs and read:

Fellow contemporary romance writers Tamra Baumann – Jamie Wesley – Kat Cantrell – Priscilla Kissinger | Paranormal romance writers Kay Hudson – Pamela Kopfler | Romantic suspense writers Carol Post – Sharon Wray | Novels with romantic elements Natalie Meg Evans – Jean Willett | Faith-based romance writers Karen Fleming – Kristen Ethridge | Historical romance writers Kathleen Bittner-Roth – Wendy LaCapra

Come back every month for our Writer Wednesdays! Here’s what’s in store:

And here are Kat Cantrell’s wedding books from Harlequin this month! Kat’s one of the Firebirds, and a great writer!