Today is Memorial Day, a day established for reflection and remembrance of those who died while serving in the U.S. military.

From 1868 to 1970, the official date for the holiday was May 30, whichever weekday it fell on, not the fourth Monday of the month. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which passed in 1968, created three-day holidays. In 1971,  Memorial Day began being celebrated on the last Monday in May.

There’s a reason I remember those obscure facts.

Many, many years ago, my husband and I chose Memorial Day for our wedding ceremony. For years, we celebrated the holiday along with our wedding anniversary. Not anymore, because now Memorial Day changes its date. Our anniversary doesn’t.

Why did we pick that date? Back then, we were financially strapped college students. Time off from work for a honeymoon was out of the question.

That particular year, Memorial Day, aka May 30th, fell on a Thursday, which meant we only had to take one unpaid day off work to prepare for our wedding.

To save more expense, I wore my mother’s wedding dress, which she’d worn twenty-five years earlier.

My mother is in the dress in the picture on the top left.

I’m in the picture below her, wearing the dress with an altered neckline and a let-out hem.

The larger picture is our daughter in the same dress for her wedding, twenty-five years later. We added lace to the hemline and around the neck.

Otherwise, the dress, made by my grandmother from imported French Alençon lace, is exactly as it was when my mother wore it. Now safely stored in my mother’s cedar hope chest.

Memorial Day was set up to mourn and honor our nation’s fallen service members. It’s evolved into the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers.

Today will be filled with happy thoughts of our wedding, coupled with deep sadness for friends and family we’ve lost in military service. There are so many families out there that don’t have loved ones around to celebrate their wedding anniversaries with.

Join me at 3 p.m. for the National Moment of Remembrance to give them some silence, to say a little prayer, and acknowledge their ultimate sacrifice.