HOUSTON True love waits. Even, apparently, as long as 45 years.
Doug Sanders and Susan Carpenter, members of the Ball High School class of 1967, tied the knot Friday evening at the Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston at their 45-year high school reunion.
During their senior year, Sanders took Carpenter on a double date to a drive-in movie. In a moment of youthful exuberance, he proposed and asked her to be his wife.
She didn t think I was serious but I was, recalled Sanders.
I laughed and I said yeah right, said Carpenter of the proposal. So she said no.
They eventually drifted apart and after graduation they went their separate ways. Both of them married other people. Sanders lost his wife to cancer after 41 years of marriage. Carpenter has been married and divorced three times. But a lonely Sanders was encouraged by his children to look for his fellow classmates on Facebook.
He found Carpenter in August 2011. By November, he was on his knees proposing the minute he stepped off an airplane in Norfolk, Virginia on a trip to meet her at her home in Portsmouth.
This time Susan said yes.
There s always been a special place in my heart for her. I ve always, always loved her and always will.
When we were talking about wedding vows I told him I was just going to say ditto, said Carpenter.
And they decided what better time to get married than at their 45th high school reunion in Galveston at Moody Gardens. The ceremony, conducted by a judge who was also a member of the class of 67, took place right before the Saturday reunion party.
This is the day we ve been waiting for a long, long time, said Sanders.
Forty-five years, this is my dream come true. And I feel like Cinderella, added Carpenter.
We ve been apart yet it doesn t seem like we ve been apart a day. So we re going to start where we left off, said Sanders.
And the reunion gave Sanders a chance finally to sign his old girlfriend s yearbook. He never got a chance 45 years ago. This time he wrote 45 years later and you are as beautiful as you were in 1967... This time you said yes and our dreams have finally come true.
I m a very lucky man, Sanders said. How many men get a second chance at their first love?
After the high school reunion festivities in Galveston, the new Mr. and Mrs. Doug Sanders will make their home in Beaver, Oklahoma, population approximately 1,300, and start catching up on those 45 years.
