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looking at relationships at that time in our lives,”
says Rogers-Pfeiffer. “We didn’t really feel we had
to go through ‘let’s date for a year and let’s live
together for another two years, and then a few
trips together.’ We went right for the jugular to de-
termine if this was going to be something or not.”
While she did enjoy her first wedding, a small
affair with 50 guests in Laguna Beach, Calif., the
second time around at the Post Hotel in Lake
Louise allowed Rogers-Pfeiffer to increase the
guest list and include more of the people who
mattered to her. The expanded list went hand in
hand with the intention behind the special day,
which had also evolved from her first wedding.
“This was more of a true celebration of find-
ing this person, celebrating our family, and we
wanted a lot of people around for that,” she says.
Rogers-Pfeiffer says the biggest difference
between her first wedding and her second wasn’t
anything material, but rather the confidence with
which she was able to go into the marriage itself.
“The first marriage, I was very good friends with
my husband. I think I didn’t quite understand the
difference between friendship and love, but I was
too young and naive to understand that feeling,”
she says. “Knowing what I know now, there is a
definite distinction between truly loving someone
and wanting someone as your husband, versus
liking someone a lot and wanting to spend a lot
of time with them.”
The idea of getting remarried can seem daunt-
ing, especially when society can exert a lot of
pressure on what marriage should look like, be
and do. In spite of this, Rogers-Pfeiffer believes
that if you know yourself, you can’t go wrong.
“It comes down to your instincts and your intu-
itions,” she says. “Do what feels right to you as an
individual and feel confident in every decision
that you make.” Sheenah Rogers-Pfeiffer photograph by CTK PhotographyTiming it Right
A little older, a little wiser and often with a previous marriage
under their belt, those getting married later in life often walk
down the aisle with different perspectives — and expectations
— than their younger counterparts. Three Calgary women ex-
plain why weddings, like wine, can and do get better with age.
BY Andrew Guilbert
SHEENAH ROGERS-PFEIFFER
F
or Sheenah Rogers-Pfeiffer, one of the
biggest differences between her first and
second marriages stemmed from having
a clearer picture of what she wanted —
a sentiment that seems to be a recurring
theme in later marriages.
For her and husband David Pfeiffer, being
older meant not wasting time on things that aren’t
worthwhile. Following their initial blind date,
the couple’s second date involved David whisking
Sheenah off to New York for a weekend, a big step
for some, but for this couple, a sign they were on
the same page. “I think when you get older you
have a very clear idea of what you want and you’re
not going to waste time on it, so you want to cut
through the fat fast — at least that’s how we were