How did you and Alan meet?
One night he came to a basketball game at BYU where I was cheerleading and we noticed each other. I was there with my parents. It was the first game I had gone to without a date because it was so close to Christmas and the guy I was dating had gone home for Christmas. It was a great opportunity to be able to meet him. He was in the stands and afterward came down and introduced himself to me. I already knew Mary, Merrill's wife, who was a cheerleader the year before me and through her, we were set up and started dating.

Click Here for Alan's version of their love story.

Were you very familiar with the Osmonds?
I knew who Donny was and knew that they were brothers. I didn't know any of the brothers' names (except for Merrill). I had only heard their music on the radio and I didn't have any of their records. I had never seen them on t.v. - not even the Andy Williams Show. When I was in high school they started releasing records and that was the first I heard the name Osmond. I had heard that they were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of course I had heard of Donny and the brothers but that was about it.

When I met him he wasn't doing much in show business. I never did see him perform until after we were married.

What was your first impression of Alan?
I thought that he was very nice but I expected him to be quite conceited. I told myself I was not going to give him the satisfaction of falling all over him like a lot of other girls probably did. So, I was a little bit cool, I guess. My mother was there with me and she met him too and was very impressed! As we drove home that night, she said to me in the car, "What if you would marry him?" I couldn't believe she would make such a statement. I thought it was kind of ridiculous at that point. I didn't even know him and thought that he would be somebody totally different than who he was.

What did you do on your first date?
We went as a group with his other brothers and their dates to the Tree Room Restaurant at Sundance Ski Resort and had a nice meal. There were ten or twelve of us in that group. It was Robert Redford's restaurant and he came over and said hello. I later found out Alan asked him to do that to help make a good impression. Mike Curb was also with us that night because they had been doing some recording. We had a great time and my opinion of Alan did an about-face. It totally changed after that because I got to know Alan as a person a little better.

How long did you date before you were married?
About seven months. We never did go steady and continued seeing other people. We were not serious at all until the very end. Alan went away to California for a month and during that time we realized how much we cared for each other. When he came home, we were engaged within about five days and then married just a couple of weeks later.

How did Alan propose to you?
I was at a family gathering for my Grandma's birthday up at my parents' cabin. All of my aunts, uncles, cousins...everyone was there. Alan was supposed to come and pick me up but he was late. When he finally arrived, he took me back to the Riviera apartments where they were living. We watched Donny and Marie on Johnny Carson or something. Then a whole bunch of us went swimming in the pool there. Several of the brothers had dates. I scraped my chin on the bottom of the pool.

Afterwards we got dressed and went back to their place and I found out why he had been late picking me up. He had been fasting and praying that day about asking me to marry him and had received an answer to his prayers that this was right. He wrote down his feelings and he took me into a room they called their Celestial room. It was all beautiful and white. He read to me the answers to his prayer that he had written and said that he wanted to marry me and that's how he asked me. Alan told me that he didn't want an answer right away and I told him I couldn't give him one right away.

So, the next day, I fasted and prayed about it myself and received the same response, that this was right and it was something we should do. It was only a couple of weeks after that, that we were married.

Alan comments..."Well, I knew she was going to marry me because of how strong my answer was but I wanted her to have her own confirmation."

Suzanne...And he called me three times that day to ask "Have you made a decision?" I'd say "no, not yet" and hang up. A little while later he'd call back, "Have you made a decision?"

Alan comments..."I remember I picked her up in my car, my little 450SL sports car with the top down. We were in Spanish Fork and I asked her. She said, 'yes' and I slammed on the breaks and went YAHOOO!!! out in the street..."
Suzanne...Then we went to LA and announced it to the press and then he went to Las Vegas and we didn't see each other again until our wedding day.

Tell us about your wedding day
We were engaged such a short time because Alan was leaving on a world tour and the only way I'd be able to accompany him was as his wife, not just as a girlfriend. We decided to hurry and get married so I could go with him.

All your life, you picture your wedding day to be a certain way and this was not at all as I'd pictured it. Alan flew in with his family that morning (of July 16, 1974) to Provo (Utah) airport. We went to the Provo Temple and were married, came out and took some pictures, and got on the airplane to Las Vegas because they had two shows to do that night. The entire day was just a blur.

The first time I ever saw Alan perform on stage was on our wedding night. I felt like I was seeing another side of him because he did things I had no idea he could do. I didn't know he played the trumpet and I didn't know he danced the way he did. I was really getting to know him a lot better than I thought I knew him before we were married.

Click Here for more memories of Alan and Suzanne's Wedding Day.
 

The Wedding Reception.....
We came back five weeks later and had a reception in Spanish Fork that my mother and my sisters put together for me.

The reception was originally planned for August 20th. We were in England and Ann Margaret was doing a show and someone dropped out. She called the brothers and asked them if they would fill in and said she really needed them and almost begged them to stay. I had to call my mother back in Utah and have her move our reception one day later so it really threw them into a panic. The caterer had to redo all sorts of things because he had already rented out his things for the next night. My mom and my sisters did everything. In Spanish Fork, the whole town comes to a wedding reception. We had over 4,000 people come through our wedding line that night. I remember we had jet-lag because we had just barely come back from Europe and almost felt like we were in a daze that night. It was special. It was nice to have everybody there and have that kind of support.

Click Here for more memories of Alan and Suzanne's Reception.
 

Photo by Terri Priest

About your wedding day and reception...what it was like versus what you thought it would be like?
I had witnessed several of my friends getting married and it was always basically the same. That's what I expected mine would be like but instead my fiance flies in from Las Vegas that morning for our wedding. We meet him at the airport, we drive to the Provo Temple, get married and immediately afterwards we took some pictures and then go straight back to Las Vegas because he had to do two shows that night. There was no reception that night, there was no wedding breakfast, we just had to get right back to work. He worked every single day of our honeymoon. We had only been married two days and he was sent to LA to help Jimmy do a television show and left me in Vegas for the day. That was different for a honeymoon. We came back five weeks later for our wedding reception and we took off again immediately after that. They had a very heavy touring schedule. There's nothing like taking your husband's entire family on your honeymoon!

I thought it would be very traditional...like all my other friends' had been. They planned with their fiances for several months, wrote out their invitations; I didn't get to sign one invitation, all that was done while we were gone. Then they have their wedding, they have their wedding breakfast, they have the reception, usually all about the same day. Then the couple leaves and goes on a private honeymoon. Ours was very, very public and there was a lot of media that was always there taking pictures. That was one other thing that I was not accustomed to.

You've now been married over 20 years. How do you keep your marriage happy?
I think Alan keeps it happy. He has a sense of humor and he is always cracking jokes, saying and doing funny things. I think our kids help us stay happy too. A lot of parents talk about how hard it is raising children and it is difficult. There is a lot of work that goes into it but there's a lot of happy moments that come from it as well. There's more sweet that goes along with it and more happy times than the hard times.
 

Photo by Terri Priest

What do you believe makes a marriage successful?
I think it takes a lot of hard work. It's not something that you enter into lightly. It's a very serious step that you take when you get married. It takes work every single day from both the husband and the wife. You look at it as not just something that is for this life. We married for eternity so it's very serious to make sure that we marry the right person when we do marry and then work at it each day. There's always going to be struggles and trials that come into your life. But if you keep a long term perspective and look for those ways that you can make compromises with each other, then you can resolve conflicts and problems that you might be faced with and remember the reasons you married this person; that you loved them and that you wanted to be with them forever and work towards that goal.

We've made our marriage work by determination and knowing that we do love each other. I think a big factor in our marriage is that it's a triangle. It's not just between Alan and myself. It's also with our Heavenly Father. And every night before we retire to bed, we kneel as a couple and have our prayers as a couple and take turns offering that prayer. I think when we are humble and trying hard that way and involve our Heavenly Father too, that He blesses us and helps us to work out any problems that might arise. One more thing that I think is very important is that people DO marry and not just live together. I don't believe that is a moral situation and one that our Heavenly Father would condone at all. Marriage is of God and it's important that we take those steps that are legally and rightfully in His ways. When we do it His way then He's going to bless us and strengthen those relationships. It's been proven that those people who have relationships outside of marriage, even if they do get married later on, are not as fulfilled as those who do wait to have a relationship within the bonds of marriage.