I was a wedding wuss

Published On: April 13, 2009

Marriages may be made in heaven. But weddings are made right here on earth.  A wedding is the one time in life when a bride and groom are asked to make the kinds of decisions usually reserved for the theater professional—script, costumes, props—each of which is constrained by fate and circumstance. Which is another way of saying that they must make art within the boundaries of life.

I admire the aggressive couples who seize their day and run with it, who jettison tradition in favor of self-expression. I’ve read of—but unfortunately never been invited to—ceremonies in which the blissful couple recited their vows on mule-back or balanced on a high wire or right before they hurtled down a colossal water slide—a variation on the bungee wedding, in which one says “I do” and then literally takes the plunge.

A pair near Nashville staged their nuptials on the future site of their home trailer.  The cake was in the shape of a doublewide, and their German shepherds served a ushers and flower girls.

At one significantly expensive Dallas event—drachma put the big “D” in Dallas—bride and groom gave Rolexes as favors and imported the entire Fort Worth symphony to play.  Their cake took the form of the condo development in which her papa was the major investor, and they had dibs on the bridal suite. Transportation between church and reception was horse and carriage. Because the route required negotiating a major toll road, ushers were stationed at each booth to toss in coins as the party passed.

In planning my own epithalamium, I entered into the creative process with the boundless self-confidence of youth and inexperience. I would do it my way. I emerged more vanquished than victorious.

For my intended and me to be considered properly joined, our ceremony had to abide by the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, which are considerable.  The priest permitted the elimination of the word “obey,” but the hour’s worth of High Mass—complete with vestments—was nonnegotiable.

Clothing was another compromise. In reaction to the austerities WWII imposed on her own marriage, my mother urged me into elaborate lace and eggshell peau de soie—with a train yet—when I really wanted cotton voile.  The dressmaker tried to talk me out of a hat and into a veil. I settled for a floral crown.

Foodstuffs were also points of contention.  The caterer insisted that chicken livers wrapped with bacon would be a yummy appetizer. Despite my protest that I loathed livers no matter what the species, the little organs were featured prominently on the hors d’oeuvre trays.  The baker stated unequivocally that a chocolate cake with chocolate icing would be quite literally tacky. Here I stuck to my sticky guns.

I realized in retrospect that, purportedly in charge, I had actually served a variety of special interests. Parents and parson, seamstress and florist, cook and cake-maker had tugged their respective forelocks and professed to seek direction. In actuality, they’d always known—if in some cases subconsciously—exactly what they’d wanted to do and had just been trying to figure out how to get me to agree with them.

Perhaps, in trying to please all of the stakeholders in “my day” at least some of the time, I wussed out.  The fact that my union has survived for 30-plus years could indicate, however, that tacking to the golden mean enhances your chances for celebrating an anniversary with a similar metallic sheen.