Possibly because in the last eight months I’ve been to 4 weddings (among them my daughter’s and my niece’s), I’ve become slightly obsessed with weddings. Each one is so different. Each bride is so lovely and each family dynamic so fascinating. Each wedding feels like a mini-novel with food. The bride is generally the protagonist of the story, but only time will tell who the antagonist is. You can see my mind is churning. So, I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors if they had any memorable wedding stories and this is what they said:
Michele: I have had the honor of officiating at two weddings, which made them very special to me. The first was for a former client whom I had represented during his divorce. That was quite an honor and it was a delight to see him so happy with his lovely new wife. The second was for an older couple in their late seventies. Both had lost earlier spouses. They had been living together in Florida and decided to make it official. The wedding was in my favorite cousin’s home and was beautiful from the flowers to the food to their their fancy wedding clothes. After I pronounced the couple married, I had to do the ceremony all over again so they could wear their Harley Davidson outfits to show their biker pals back home. I even found wedding vows for bikers. You can’t make up a story like this! I am so glad they had those moments. The husband died about a year later and the memories are very special for his bride. Robin: I was a guest at the wedding of an exotic dancer. It was, hands down, one of the most romantic ceremonies I’ve seen. Beautiful grounds on a warm June day in Marin County, lovely cellist, flower girl tossing out white rose petals, officiated by a friend of theirs who clearly knew them well, a woman who beamed the whole time and shared cute stories. A fair number of attendees were also strippers who were interesting and fun to talk to so it was one of the more fascinating receptions. Most of them, including the bride, didn’t drink. They toasted with sparkling, non-alcoholic cider. Cate: Wow.. These are all such great stories. The most memorable wedding that I attended would have to be my own. My grandfather made Jamaican Rum punch. To people unfamiliar with the punch, it can taste deceivingly non-alcoholic because of all the strong flavors of the fruits, despite containing bottles of over-proof white rum. More than half the guests didn’t realize that the punch was packing. It started off as a wedding and basically ended up as an Irish wake. So, both of my heritages were represented.
Tracee: I agree with Cate’s Wow. I also suspect Cate’s reception was pretty much wow as well! I avoided all drama and was married in a civil service in Hong Kong (Our wedding dinner was in a private home on Victoria Peak, with the tables set alongside the indoor pool. The hostess had covered the water with flower petals and was more worried about every detail than I would have ever been!)I have to keep details to a minimum with this next one so the participants remain anonymous, but years ago I was at a wedding rehearsal where the young nervous groom stood up to the overbearing and over confident father-of-the-bride and told him that under no circumstances was he to be late for the actual wedding. It was done politely but with certitude. There was a collective moment of stunned silence then a very long sense of well done! (The sense of well done has lasted for over 30 years…..) Alison: Wonderful stories! One of my favorite wedding memories is the story of my train. My grandma was a gifted seamstress. We designed the dress together, and she sewed it from ivory silk faille with tiny pearls and cream Austrian lace. It was an off-the-shoulder sheath with a long narrow train. The plan was to edge the train with the lace and pearls. At the final fitting, my grandma rolled out the five-foot train. Not only had she sewn hundreds of tiny pearls on the lace edging of the train, but she’d also sprinkled flowers of lace and pearls across the center of train. I loved it. Her eyes teared up. She’d been worried about my reaction. The last time she had worked on the train, she pricked her finger. Several drops of blood had fallen on the pristine fabric. There was no way to clean the train without ruining it. So, she covered the drops with lace and pearls instead. . . . Yes, I still have the dress. Thinking about it brings tears to my own eyes now. Very happy tears. Alexia: I confess no particular wedding stands out to me. I’ve only participated in one wedding, as a bridesmaid, a couple of decades ago. Most of my friends married decades ago and I don’t have children or young relatives so I haven’t attended any weddings as a guest recently. I’ve volunteered on the wedding committee of various Altar Guilds so I’ve worked at a few weddings (and been amused by some of the behind-the-scenes goings on) but i haven’t had any emotional connection to any of those. Weddings really aren’t my thing. Paula: I love weddings. I loved (both of) mine. But my favorite wedding was the wedding of two longtime writer friends. She’s Thai and he’s Catholic and they had both a priest and her mother there to do the Thai part of the ceremony. His family brought holy water from the Vatican, and her family brought holy water from a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Each family member carried a small shell of holy water, and poured it into a huge conch shell, in a symbolic combining of their two traditions.Afterward I sat with a bunch of my friends, all of whom, myself included, had been divorced. We were all bemoaning marriage was and then I finally said look, “Indi and Randy are the most well-suited couple we know, and if anyone can make it work, they can. We have to believe in marriage today, so let’s all clap for Tinker Bell.”And so we all clapped for Tinker Bell. Indi and Randy are still married today years later. They have two beautiful children. How about you, friends? Do you have any memorable wedding stories?
