I haven’t been very deeply involved with many weddings in my lifetime, this is probably because I was born in 1934 and grew up with parents who weathered the Great Depression. Because of the hardships they endured, they were naturally frugal and conservative. Big Hollywood-style weddings happened, for the most part, only in Hollywood. Even celebratory parties reflected the days of the not-so-distant past in they often featured potluck dinners and BYOB liquid refreshments.
Even the party known as the wedding reception was usually pretty bare bones when it came to extravagance. There was likely only cake and fruit punch served to the guests. If what we envision as “the wedding dinner” was a feature, it was usually limited to the wedding party and immediate families. Most often the wedding and the reception took place in the family home or the bride’s family’s church, with the church ladies managing the kitchen and serving for a modest fee. If there were gift showers for the bride, they were held at the home of a close friend (it was extremely bad taste for any member of the bride’s or groom’s family to sponsor a wedding shower) and nobody would even consider throwing a gift shower for the groom or for the engaged couple. Many people considered a shower gift adequate to serve double duty as the wedding gift, as well, or the hostess collected small donations from the invited guests and purchased one major gift to be presented by the whole group.
Only the wealthiest (or proudest) of families provided gifts for the wedding guests other than cuff links for the best man and groomsmen and bracelets for the bridesmaids and maid of honor. The only “souvenir” guests normally took home was a paper napkin imprinted with the first names of the bride and groom. And, more often than not, the bride and groom were the only members of the wedding adorned with flowers. Weddings took place in late spring and early summer, often for the simple reason there would be plenty of fresh (and free) flowers available to decorate the altar and the tables at the reception, thanks to friends and relatives who sacrificed their lilacs, tulips, irises, peonies and even apple blossoms for the cause.
My three sisters and I didn’t grow up dreaming about our own fairy-tale weddings, mostly because we never saw one except for a few extravaganzas in movies and on television. Those included the nuptials of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, and had no relationship to our lives. I attended only three weddings, those of two aunts and my older sister, before asked to be a bridesmaid for a college roommate. I had little idea of what was expected of me in this role and the bride’s mother seemed to be mostly concerned with my hair and makeup than any duties she expected of me. Since this was a December wedding, I had a stunning Christmas green dress and hair tinted just a little on the auburn side (an extremely daring venture to my mind) and I don’t remember much at all about the ceremony except the new satin shoes I’d tinted green to match the dress the pinched so much I actually wiggled one foot partway out of the shoe standing interminably at the altar.
The part I remember most about it was meeting a young accountant who did work for my roommate’s father and, even though I’d never been much of a dancer, we sipped champagne and danced exclusively with each other for the duration of the wedding reception. They say weddings are contagious and I believe that to be true. That wedding was in Spencer, I had to get home to Knoxville before Christmas and the young accountant offered to drive me home. We were engaged by Valentine’s Day and married the last day of March. The wedding plans were quite simple. I was married wearing an olive green cotton dress, with a band-aid on my shin where I’d nicked myself with a razor. We were married in the home of a Methodist minister, in Minnesota, with the minister’s wife and the cleaning lady as witnesses. Our wedding reception consisted of just the two of us. Bar-B-Q chips, hamburgers and beer were served by the bartender.
A former volunteer and substitute teacher in the Solon schools, Milli is an artist and a poet living near Morse creating unique greeting cards and handmade books.