I can’t believe I got married so young. In hindsight, it
seems insane. I finished up my last year of college in May and got married in
June. But, as occurs in so many relationships, we had reached that point of: “What
are we doing?” Women don’t have an unlimited amount of time to ponder. If
things are NOT going to work out, it’s better to realize it sooner rather than
later. In our case, we decided to go for it.
It was kindof a miracle my wedding came together at all. I
knew nothing whatsoever about weddings. I hadn’t been to any, and didn’t know
anyone my age who’d had a regular wedding before me. (Elopements were not going
to help.) I was far too busy finishing up college to read “Brides” magazine.
And this was before the Internet, which today ensures everything you need to
know to plan your Big Day is at your fingertips is in less than one second.
I received no advice whatsoever, except from the minister
who married us. I envisioned a lovely garden wedding with summer breezes and
butterflies, but Jack Lewis convinced us to marry in his beautiful little
church. “Years later,” he said, “It’s nice to drive by an actual building and
say, ‘That’s where we got married!’”
He was absolutely right. Also, there was a rip-roaring
nor’easter the night before our wedding. The next morning it was still raining
and the streets were covered with broken tree limbs and shredded leaves. My
imagined summer ceremony would have been a complete, sodden loss. Instead, our
guests squeezed into the quaint country church for a cozy ceremony among
friends.
I received no advice and no money from my parents, but they
did agree to host the reception at their home. Luckily, a cheery
yellow-and-white tent with a dance floor had been set up on their lawn two days
ahead.
To keep things cheap, we bartered an oil portrait by Artiste
for a home-made wedding dress. This was a mistake. I recommend that all brides
take the time to try on pretty dresses rather than have their wedding dress
assembled by someone who wears military grade perfume and has a crush on their
fiancé.
I thought it was my responsibility to pay for bridesmaid
dresses (it wasn’t), so I just didn’t have any bridesmaids. That was another
mistake. Weddings are more fun when you share the experience.
My friend Tildy served as the Matron of Honor. Her father
flew her to a tiny airstrip in Rhode Island in his own tiny plane. It was a
blustery day, and he had a hard time landing. It took several passes. I could
see Tildy’s face in the window each time the plane came in for a landing, was
buffeted from side to side, and sped up again into the sky. By the time they
landed successfully, Tildy was thoroughly sick. She also was pregnant.
My mother arranged the food and booze, which was, yes, another
mistake. She planned for a little of the former, but plenty of the latter.
No one suggested that we find someplace nice to stay the
night of the wedding – another mistake. We ended up in a cheap motel five miles
from home with questionable neighbors on the other side of the motel room wall.
No one mentioned a honeymoon, so we never took one. That was
– you guessed it – another mistake.
I felt guilty registering for any gifts, because it seemed
greedy to me. I just wanted our friends to have fun. This was – well, a
mistake. People WANT to give presents, and they need some guidance. I did not
understand that part at all, and of course no one explained it to me.
Most of these mistakes could have been prevented, but a few
things simply could not have been predicted.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my aunt drank too much
and stabbed my wedding cake repeatedly with a long knife.
A friend of a friend had just gotten divorced and spent the
entire day weeping in the house. Every time I passed through the downstairs on
what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life I saw her agonized, red,
tear-stained face.
One guest was selling marijuana from his pockets behind the
house.
One of my very best friends over-indulged a bit in
champagne, fell down the stairs, and later disappeared with the photographer.
But all in all it was a grand reception because I knew there
was one thing I positively wanted, and that was a square dance. No fuddy-duddy
old people music! No one sitting in chairs watching! We had a great bluegrass
band and a caller who got everyone up on their feet and swinging around in
do-si-do’s.
The most bizarre event of all occurred a couple of days
before the wedding. We received from a distant relative a book of Aubrey
Beardsley drawings. Why on earth he thought this was appropriate I’ll never
know. According to Wikipedia, “Beardsley was the most
controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era,
renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque erotica.” Beardsley
himself was thought to be gay, but also may have had an incestuous affair with
his sister. In all honesty, I would have preferred a cut glass pickle dish to
this slim volume of black-and-white drawings.
My mother was absolutely FASCINATED by this wedding
gift. It was rather incomprehensible to me, but definitely pornographic in its
intent. Artiste and I scanned through the book, laughed very hard, and left it
with the other gifts when we went out to run some errands.
When we came back, my mother had already drunk her
lunch and was wandering about the house. We thought we would take another look
at our peculiar wedding gift, but it was nowhere to be found. My mother finally
confessed that, AFTER reading the whole thing from cover to cover, she had
burned it in the fireplace. Sure enough, there was a pile of smoking ashes in
the living room fireplace.
Today I am just full of information for brides-to-be.
Buy a dress! Order plenty of food! Plan a honeymoon! And don’t let your
alcoholic mother get into your presents.
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