Still a perfect fit, 40 years in
Mayor Tory shares tweets, stories as he and wife celebrate anniversary
Over the weekend, Toronto Mayor John Tory and his wife, Barbara Hackett, spent time at the same places they visited 40 years ago. They went to the church where they got married, paying for the flowers displayed on the altar for the Sunday service.
They had lunch at the same west-end golf course where their wedding reception was held.
Hackett even wore her wedding dress. After four decades of marriage, it was still a perfect fit.
“The most important thing is we’re at the stage that we can finish each others sentences,” Tory said.
On Sunday, Tory tweeted out now-and-then photos of the couple: on their wedding day in 1978, and celebrating their 40th anniversary Sunday — with Hackett wearing the same dress in both shots.
“We know what the things are that aggravate each other,” he told the Star on Monday. “Now our reactions are to either laugh or to roll our eyes at each other.”
Their celebratory weekend was full of festivities beginning with dinner Saturday night in Yorkville with 20 of the couple’s oldest friends — some of whom they have known for as long as their marriage — and their four children and their spouses.
“There were no grandchildren. This was an adult party,” Tory said, jokingly.
When they arrived, Hackett disappeared for a short while, Tory said. She re-emerged wearing her wedding dress and took him by surprise.
She had worn it once previously, 25 years ago, he said, at a friend’s wedding dress-themed party. It fit then, too.
“She hasn’t changed much,” Tory said of his wife. “She’s not that much different looking from when I married her.”
Tory said his wedding tuxedo was a rental.
“I couldn’t fit into it today,” he said, laughing. “You can tell that from the pictures.”
Tory and Hackett met in a French class at York University.
On the day of their anniversary, Tory planned the entire day for the two of them. Barb, he said, didn’t have any clue. All he told her was that they were going to “the west-end.”
Tory took her to the Islington United Church, where a Doors Open event was underway. Together they attended service and looked upon the wall carrying the picture of the minister who married them, now retired.
They then went to the Weston Golf Club and had lunch. “It’s not one that I belong to,” the mayor said, whose love for golf is widely known. He called them and explained it was his 40th wedding anniversary and their reception had been held there.
Before heading for dinner at a small Yorkville restaurant, they went to see their daughter and two of their five grandchildren.
“It was wise of me to take the day off,” Tory said.
The secret to 40 years of marriage, the mayor said, is respect.
“You can talk about love and romance and all the laughter and fun, but you have to respect each other,” he said.
Tory and his wife are very different people, he said. Whereas he likes meeting people in smaller groups, she will be “the centre of the room.” The differences could be a recipe for disaster, he says, but their respect for each other overcomes that.
“She will get up at formal parties and tell completely offcolour jokes,” he says. “People tell the story for years afterwards. I’ll be sliding slowly in my chair.”
At his 60th birthday party-turned-campaign fundraiser in May 2014, Hackett surprised Tory by being the one to introduce him to the crowd of more than 100 people.
Then she also surprised campaign organizers by launching with a joke about the couple’s sex life.
“The older you get the more you realize people don’t change,” Tory said.
“She is who she was when I married her.”
Hackett relayed a similar sentiment at the dinner commemorating the 40 years they have been married, telling her husband, “I hope you never stop being you and I promise I won’t stop being me.”