Weddings

We had an interesting discussion at Knit Natters - Barbara, Sylvia, Mary, and I - about our weddings, which we did inexpensively but meaningfully many years ago.  None of us knew each other back then...

John and I got married at the house he had just bought, which became our first home, which was decorated with a fresh Christmas tree.  We ordered a cake from a lady who made them at her home.  We purchased a few flowers.  Mom, John and I cooked all the food.  My sister wore a dress she already had.  John wore a business suit, and his best man did the same thing.  We hired a minister, who became our minister for years to come.  I do wish we'd had a photographer, but we just had friends take Polaroids.  The whole wedding cost almost nothing.

Sylvia remarked how many of the couples she knows who've been married a long time had simple weddings, and lots of couples have expensive weddings and then divorces.  She and Doug were in the service when they got married.  They had a modest wedding, too, at a little church. She said her sister was the bridesmaid, as well, and wore a dress she already had.  Sylvia and Doug had homemade photos, as well; two of the three rolls were lost in processing.

Barbara and Carl were married in another small church.  Barbara made her own dress; her sister did the flowers; and another made the cake.  Barbara showed us her wedding dress!  It's a candlelight-colored lace over a satin slip, and she said she spent a month making it and sewing sequins in scattered positions all over the dress.  The sequins match the ivory color closely, so all you see is a flash of light.  It's a beautiful dress.  She has the bridesmaid hat, and and veil she wore is especially pretty.  Her sister, the one who does flowers, made the headdress.

Mary also had a simple wedding, and off we all went into a whole conversation about ways that people used to pitch in and do weddings to keep the cost down.  But I'm not sure.  It seems to me that when John and I had the super-simple wedding, that it was a little unusual.  Back then, we attended some friends' big weddings and fancy catered dinner-dances.  Possibly, it's just a coincidence that the four of us having this conversation at Knit Natters all had modest, more meaning-than-money weddings.

It's a truism that something goes wrong at every wedding.  There was one wedding where the bridal veil caught fire on the candles, and someone else in the wedding party put it out quickly with her hands; at one, someone in the bridal party had too much to drink and thought it was funny to heckle; we attended one in  Las Vegas which involved a whole lot of waiting around while they did I don't know what - maybe decided whether or not to go through with it; a wedding was in a non-air-conditioned church with an endless Episcopal ceremony; a beautiful wedding with a minister who went on and on about obedient, submissive wives in a slightly misogynistic way.  My son was a little ring bearer at a close friend's wedding, and fell down a flight of stairs afterwards - they kids were horsing around, but the ripped tuxedo pants were an expensive surprise later on.   .