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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Watch any of the litany of wedding-themed TV shows being aired today and you will likely hear an anxious bride-to-be fussing about her desire for the "perfect" wedding.

Premier Bob McLeod and Melody McLeod, high school sweethearts, have been married for 38 years. - Galit Rodan/NNSL photo

It is refreshing, then, to hear Premier Bob McLeod and his wife Melody recount their wedding and the days leading up to it and realize that it was the unplanned, imperfect moments that seem to stand out 38 years later.

From ditching a car on a freezing cold day to a wedding cake collapse to an enthusiastic but out-of-tune organist, the predicaments of yesteryear elicit nothing but laughs from the McLeods.

Bob and Melody met in the fall of 1966 at Grandin College, a boarding school in Fort Smith, he a freshman and she an enamoured sophomore.

"For me, as soon as I saw him it was instant," said Melody.

Melody, definitely the more extroverted of the two, recalls asking Bob to the school's Sadie Hawkins dance that fall. Their on-again, off-again relationship grew more serious when Melody stayed in Fort Smith for a year and worked while Bob finished high school.

They separated – at least geographically – in 1970 when Bob went east to play OHL hockey in St. Catharines, Ontario – at least, "I tried to play," said Bob – and Melody went to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. But Bob's hockey career was cut short by an injury and he moved back across the country to work in the Alberta oilfields.

By the fall of 1972 they were engaged and living in a small basement apartment while Bob studied at the University of Alberta. The ring, bought from People's Credit Jewelers in Edmonton, cost about $300 and Bob, on a student's budget, paid for it on an installment plan.

Melody bought the first dress she tried on, a white, lace-sleeved, princess cut number with a high lace collar, tiered skirt and sash at the waist. She bought Bob's navy blue suit and tie and white collared shirt from Sears and found an Edmonton seamstress to create the Christmas-inspired red velvet and white chiffon dresses for the maid-of-honour, bridesmaids and flower girl.

Their wedding, an affair to remember with more than 300 guests, was scheduled to take place Dec. 28, 1973 in Pine Point, a now-abandoned mining town south of Great Slave Lake where Melody's father worked as a miner.

"It was a quite a big deal," said Melody.

"People still talk about it … we had most of the community come to our wedding – to Pine Point from Fort Resolution and then his family from (Fort) Providence and then we had family from Yellowknife and Hay River and … It was a huge wedding in those days," she said.

Melody went to Pine Point a few days early to help her mother organize the massive event and Bob and one of three best men followed in a rental car several days later.

"You wanna tell that story?" asked Melody, laughing.

"Yeah, we drove 15 hours and … I remember seeing this big truck drive by and then we're coming along and then I saw something black in the middle of the road…I thought it was black ice so I just kept going and it was a big truck tire in the middle of the road so I saw it take off like a flying saucer," said Bob, describing the scene upon hitting the tire.

As the tire soared across the highway, the car Bob was driving sunk into a ditch. It was -35 C, cellphones hadn't been invented yet and the car was full of food and wine that the men were bringing to Pine Point for the wedding.

"Anyway, it all turned out OK," said Melody.

The cake was another matter. "My mom had this lady make a four-layer cake for us and unfortunately she had a flood in her basement and the cake toppled," said Melody. Remarkably the cake was salvaged as two distinct cakes of two layers each. "It was still a great wedding cake," said Melody.

Melody's parish priest from Fort Resolution, Father Lou Menez, performed the ceremony. Menez had baptized and given first communion to most of the children in Melody's family and had also served in Fort Providence when Bob was an altar boy. The organist, Father J. Dessy,"was so honoured to be able to play the organ for us. He was just like a little kid," said Melody. The couple chuckle when they think back.

"What a rendition of Here Comes the Bride. Oh my god. Off-key. We didn't care," said Melody, laughing.

In the end, Bob and Melody didn't allow the little imperfections to spoil the day, which they remember fondly. And their ability to roll with the punches – for better or for worse – has served them well through 38 years of marriage.

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