Finally, Couple Opens Wedding Gift 9 Years After Aunt Told Them Not To Do So
Finally, Couple Opens Wedding Gift 9 Years After Aunt Told Them Not To Do So
It was a huge deal for Kathy and Brandon Gunn when Kathy’s Great Aunt Alison gave them a special gift on their wedding day.
The catch is that they weren’t allowed to open this one yet!
A card came with the white box, and it instructed them not to open it until they had their first fight as a married couple.
It was definitely a weird request, but Kathy and Brandon granted her wishes. And when the time came difficult for them and they were on the verge of breaking up, they forgot about the gift. Kathy and Brandon had a lot of fights over the years, but it wasn’t until they were married for 9 years that they remembered and decided to open the box and see what was inside.
The moment Kathy and Brandon opened Aunt Alison’s wedding gift was actually a time when they were in a blissful state. Their kids had gone to bed, and they were having a glass of wine on the deck when they thought about “the box” from their wedding.
Kathy shared this story on Love What Matters. She wrote:
“We were talking about how excited we were to attend an upcoming wedding in Kalamazoo (where we met and went to college) and discussing what would be the perfect gift for the newlyweds. So, I thought back to our wedding day (nearly 9 years ago) and tried to recall the gifts that had meant the most to me. The funny thing? The gift that meant the very most was still sitting in a closet… unopened.”
Eventually, they need to unbox the gift that has been sitting there for almost a decade. Upon unwrapping their gift, the couple discovered a handwritten message and a small amount of cash for each of them.
The note reads: “Kathy, go get a pizza, shrimp, or something you both like. Go get a bath ready.” Brandon was given the task of purchasing flowers and a bottle of wine with the money he had been given.
Even without much thought, they quickly realized what they were meant to do next.
Kathy added that when they had a disagreement, they avoided turning to the box for fear that it would signify their failure as a married couple. She wrote: “To us, it would have meant that we didn’t have what it takes to make our marriage work – and we’re both too stubborn and determined for that. So, it forced us to reassess situations. Was it really time to open the box. What if this isn’t our worst fight.
What if there’s a worse one ahead of us and we don’t have our box. . . As my Great Uncle Bill would say, ‘Nothing is ever so bad that it couldn’t get worse. ’”
Kathy said they assumed the box’s contents would save their marriage. That it must have had a secret for amateurs like them. Her Great Aunt and Uncle had been married for nearly 50 years. Instead, it was something so brilliantly simple.
“For 9 years (and three moves) that box sat high on a shelf in various closets gathering dust, yet it somehow taught us about tolerance, understanding, compromise, and patience. Our marriage strengthened as we became best friends, partners, and teammates. Today, we decided to open that box, because I finally had a realization.
I realized that the tools for creating and maintaining a strong, healthy marriage were never within that box – they were within us. ”
The pair thought the box saved them, and it seems like Kathy knows that she did so even before they even opened it.
