Margaret* knew exactly how she wanted her wedding day to go and what she wanted to wear, which was definitely not the traditional white gown. In fact, there was no wedding dress shopping at all. She didn't go to a bridal store with a group of her closest friends and family. There was no teary-eyed moment where she said yes to the dress. Instead, she bought her wedding attire from a catalog without even trying on the clothes first. She will be wearing a long white skirt with one ruffle at the bottom paired with a sky-blue crochet top and fresh flowers to contrast against her dark hair.

"I didn't want to get a big white dress," she says. "Maybe if I were younger, but I'm just too old."


Images: http://www.sheindressau.com/bridesmaid-dresses

Margaret currently lives alone and plans for it to stay that way until after the wedding. And that's in part because the couple takes the whole "no sex before marriage" thing very seriously — in fact, the bride is still a virgin.

The venue for the wedding is the Catholic Church that the bride has been going to regularly for nearly her entire life. While parts of her story may seem like your typical old-fashioned wedding, there is nothing conventional about it. Margaret, the bride is 79, and Henry*, her fiancé, is 85.

"My priest told me that I should write a book," Margaret says. "He told me that he's never heard a story like mine."

Margaret and Henry met a little over 60 years ago. They both were born and raised in small neighboring farm towns along the Ohio River. Margaret was 17 years old and finishing up her senior year of high school when she met Henry, a 23-year-old working in the nearby steel mills.

"My mother didn't like him because he was too old and wasn't Catholic," Margaret says. "But I didn't really care."

I REMEMBER HIS SISTER ANSWERED THE PHONE AND SAID HENRY NEVER WANTED TO SEE ME AGAIN BECAUSE I BROKE HIS HEART​.

Margaret and Henry quickly fell in love, and "went together" for the next 4 1/2 years. Even though Margaret was away at college at Kent State University, she would visit Henry — who was still working in the steel mills — on the weekends and holiday breaks.

"You know, he really was and is the love of my life," she says.

But like many great love stories, their relationship faced an enormous amount of backlash from their families and hometowns. When Margaret was home for Easter her senior year of college, her mother told her that she had to break up with Henry once and for all because the town had "started to talk." While both were from poor rural families, Margaret's family thought she was making something out of her life by going to college, and they felt like Henry was holding her back.

With all the pressure, Henry started to doubt their relationship and told Margaret that he could never provide her with the life she deserved because he was "just a poor steel mill worker." The Saturday before Easter, Margaret, who was 21 at the time, reluctantly broke up with Henry. She didn't want to do it, but felt as though she had no choice. She could no longer handle the outside scrutiny their relationship faced.

"He told me that he'd never forget me," she says. Margaret immediately knew that she made a big mistake. She felt so bad about the breakup that she tried to call Henry the next day to apologize and beg him to take her back.

"I remember his sister answered the phone and said Henry never wanted to see me again because I broke his heart," she says. "But my heart was broken too." That was the last time Margaret ever tried to contact Henry. She never heard from him again. Even though Margaret was devastated, she returned to Kent State to finish her last year. She graduated with her bachelor's in teaching and decided to pursue her master's degree. She taught first grade for the majority of her life and about 30 years later, she retired in her early 60s. When asked why she never married nor had any children, Margaret says she was always very busy, and so she never had the chance to be lonely. Plus, she also took care of her sick mother, who lived with her, for nearly 20 years.

"She was married to teaching," says her sister-in-law, Sarah*.

And while she dated a few men throughout the years, and had one other serious relationship, none were quite like Henry. "No one compared to him," Margaret says. "There was something about him that was special." It seemed as though Margaret and Henry were destined to be star-crossed lovers, until 10 months ago when out of the blue, her housekeeper — unaware of Margaret's saga — flat-out grilled her about why she never got married.

Related: http://www.sheindressau.com/wedding-dresses-2015-2016