My third cousin, Denise, is getting married tonight. In half an hour, I have to get my hair cut and straightened and my eyebrows shaped in a proper arch. Why all the prepping? Well, it’s an ITALIAN wedding. Last time one of my Italian cousins got married, she rose from the floor in a sea of dry ice and surrounded by 15 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen doing Yegermeister (sp?) shots. I have to blend.
After I turn myself into Fran Dresher, then we’re off to Long Island. The wedding is at 7:00. And we’re leaving at 12:30. Why? To avoid the Hampton traffic. May I just say that Long Island is a festering sore on the coast of America. It should just surgically removed from main coast, and sent off to sea with Billy Joel and Alex Baldwin and P. Diddy. Later, dudes.
The Question of the Day: What was the most memorable wedding you attended? (Can’t include your own wedding.)
Apt. 11d 
Tacky horrible weddings are easier to snark about, but I’ll try to keep this positive.
My friend Suzy got married in 95. The whole wedding was very well done — wonderful food, wonderful music, beautiful space. I recall a very thoughtful seating arrangement that interspersed family and friends and mixed everyone up. And Suzy was so happy, as was everyone.
The kicker I think was the groom’s toast. He told the story of how he’d first met Suzy and had sworn on that very night that he’d marry her. It wasn’t as schmaltzy as it sounds, but it certainly had every woman in the room tearing up. I still remember the look of fear on all the other men’s faces … the look that said, “Oh shit, I’ll never live up to this!”
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My cousin’s wedding on a ferry that cruised around Elliot Bay in Seattle. The wedding itself was not touching at all, and I could make lots of cracks here but won’t. The reception however was so fun. A band that covered every song that ever made you want to dance, I particularly remember lots of James Brown. The food was crab and lobster, and they had a fully stocked open bar. The view of sunset over the water as we ate, drank and danced was fabulous. Also it later turned out that my cousin may have paid for the wedding with ill gotten gains. My first clue should have been how many women were waiting in line in the bathroom. They weren’t in line to use the toilet, but rather to snort the coke that the bride’s maids were passing out like party favors.
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The only wedding I’ve ever been to (10 years ago), my uncle’s, will be indelibly seared into my memory, largely because my parents basically ruined the whole thing for me by telling me they were getting divorced a few days earlier.
That may be why I’ve only been to one wedding…
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Two years ago my husband and I went to the wedding of a friend of his. The couple loves Lord of the Rings and are very involved in Middle Earth roleplay gaming (like Dungeons and Dragons) and they decided that during the ceremony they would speak Elvish to each other as part of their vows.
I made fun of the Elvish for weeks before, but once we were there and they did I actually teared up because it was clear it meant so much to them and after they translated what they said, it was a really sweet and loving sentiment.
It’s also worth reporting that the bride is a stripper and the groom is a professor.
Oh! Their reception was held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we got to watch giant fish swim while we ate our dinner.
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Jagermeister. And it’s icky.
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Two friends of mine had a wedding ceremony last year and asked us to stand and say something if the spirit moved us. I teared up quite a bit. Other people really appreciated the coffee stand and very good vegan and vegetarian food (some Thai).
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I believe it was my grandfather’s third wedding. Could have been the fourth. All I remember is that I had some official role in the ceremony. I was a bit of a punk at the time, and a friend helped me paint red tips into my hair. My mother, of course, made me brush it out, which left with pink hair. The ancient bride actually approved of my pink hair.
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As someone whose life goal is to build a time machine and prevent Billy Joel from ever being born… your idea sounds easier! Let’s do this! So long, Long Island!
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Ooh, that’s not nice! As someone who lives on the east end of Long Island, it would be nice to be surgically removed! Where did all of these people come from? And why do they stay? It used to be so lovely and empty in the winter and now they’ve invaded that as well.
I guess if I had to hike to New Jersey for a wedding on a summer weekend I might refer to it and the in between traffic in terms like these! But because of the traffic we tend to stay close to home this time of year.
And the most memorable wedding was that of my cousin Lisa. It was a Jewish & Italian wedding and she wore a gorgeous frilly thing with a plunging neckline. Which she popped out of while dancing with our grandfather!
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kathy – just teasing… I have many, many friends out in Long Island (cooled my heels at my best friend’s home in Cold Spring Harbor before the wedding) and part of our conversation patter is dissing the other’s home. As the only Jersey girl at SUNY Binghamton, I have heard my share of trash talking my state. You live in Jersey? What exit? Heh. Heh.
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One of my friends from college sent an invitation that said “Melissa and Ezra and their 7 parents invite you…” All 7 of the parents were amazing, brilliant people, and each had a part in the wedding–one dad or stepdad, an anthropologist, read from Malinowski’s treatise on the marriage customs of Trobriand islanders, complete with ceremonial passing of baked yams to the guests at the appropriate moment; another parental type, a classicist, had prepared a new translation of the section of Plato’s Republic (?) about two halves of a soul being joined; one mother took the weekend off from her regular gig at the Met to sing at the wedding; one microbiologist dad had a slightly strained but adorably geeky analogy about mitosis and marriage; etc. It just went on and on, each one more wacky and fun and clever and sweet than the last. It was like I imagine Salinger’s Glass family (Franny & Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeams…) might have been if they were happy.
Oh, yeah, the bride wore a traditional tulle veil and a wedding dress made of silk–*purple* silk. The wedding cake was shaped like a golf course (yup, green frosting) decorated with Shrinky Dinks (remember those?) that looked just like the bride and groom and lots of their friends out playing golf together. To my knowledge, there were no actual golfers in the crowd, but Melissa said it was the only way she could think to use round layers as the backdrop for people walking around, and she didn’t have enough square pans.
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And I just realized that my first wedding (to a man who left me for a 15 year old – yes, whatever….) was on July 23rd, 22 years ago. But this weekend out in the Hamptons was not about traffic or 15 year olds, but about my current marriage and friends and family. We’re home now and the kids are exhausted, the laundry (lots of wet towels and bathing suits) is going and my bed is looking awfully inviting. Marriage is not about the wedding day, just like having a child is really not about the birth. It’s a lifetime of moments in between…happily ever after in our case.
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Cheap but not poor cousin’s wedding– dessert was self-scoop ice cream and tea biscuits (the kind you buy for 2/$1.00). The rest of the wedding was not particularly cheap (although certainly not expensive) but I still can’t figure out why anyone would do that. Don’t people want their guests to leave with a nice memory– not the memory of how weird and cheap was that???
Then there is the wedding where the bride decided not to wear ANY makeup because she wanted to be/look perfectly pure on her wedding day. Now, white is not the most flattering color for many of us and white on an already pale girl demands SOME makeup. It is usually not hard for a bride to be glowing or attractive in some way– she wasn’t. She looked like a sick ghost.
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