On June 21, Edith Halliday said “I do” for the second time in her life.
She and husband Sid, both 87, renewed their vows after 62 years of marriage.
“I’ve never dreamt in my wildest dreams this was what I was coming to today,” Edith told the NOW after the ceremony.
The event was organized by staff at Dania Home, a long-term care facility in Burnaby where the couple lives.
Because the Hallidays have mild dementia, recreation coordinator Leslie Torresan wanted to recreate their special day. Torresan worked off a black-and-white photo, matching the cake, dress, veil and bouquet down to a T.
She even got the Hallidays to dance to their first song, This Country is My Cathedral.
“We really wanted to embrace that and let them feel that memory again. Because (dementia) is scary,” she said.
Sid and Edith, both born in Ireland, met in 1954 through mutual friends.
“I was doing my housework for my mother on a Friday night years and years ago. A friend of mine came up and she said, ‘We want you to meet a friend of ours and go with him,’ and he was sitting in a car across the street,” recalled Edith.
So what’s the secret to a long marriage?
“We have our arguments, and we have our fights. Whoever’s at fault will own up to it, and things like that. That’s how it’s done,” she said.
The guest list included the couple’s godson David Crawford (the Hallidays never had children of their own), who walked Edith down the aisle.
