Way back in 1969, on the 30th of August my dear wife and I had a wedding. Things were different back then or at least they were in our family. Our wedding was a small affair; one bride, one groom, one maid of honor and one best man. After the wedding, which took place at nine in the morning in our local parish church, immediate family members went to my parents’ house for a brunch. Then in the afternoon we all went to my wife’s family home for the reception. At that party we had about forty or fifty guests.
A friend of ours has a son that just got married down in South Carolina. As the father of the groom he hosted, and paid for, a rehearsal dinner. That dinner cost about ten thousand dollars. The complete wedding, excluding that rehearsal dinner, cost a little over a hundred thousand bucks. The men in the rather large wedding party didn’t even wear tuxes. Imagine that. Admittedly that wedding was pretty extravagant even by today’s foolish standards. But I saw somewhere that the average wedding costs about thirty thousand dollars. Our wedding, back in 1969, cost about a hundred dollars. That’s in today’s dollars, as the economists say.
My wife bought the material for a simple, short wedding dress and one of her friends constructed the thing. The rehearsal dinner was at my parents’ home and consisted of spaghetti and meatballs. My Dad mixed up some whisky sours and we had a fine time. The reception at my wife’s parents’ home was kind of a pot luck deal. Her Mom made quite a lot of the food and various aunts and friends brought the rest. The food ran to the kinds of things you’d find at a large gathering of Slavic folks. I don’t remember all the dishes but I’m sure there was goulash, dumplings and various sausages. We did buy a cake and I think that cost about ten dollars. Music was provided by one of my cousins playing records. Drinks were served by one of my wife’s uncles and consisted of Genesee Cream Ale, Utica Club beer, gin and tonics, screwdrivers and something known as a highball. The booze was the most expensive part of the whole deal and probably cost about forty dollars.
Everybody had a good old time. It was about ninety five degrees with high humidity so the alcohol took hold pretty quickly. People were in the basement, out on the back deck and wandering around the house and yard. Some dancing happened in the basement but not much. It was awfully hot. Back in those days the “Chicken Dance”, “Macarena” and the “Electric Slide” were not required activities. They weren't even invented. My mother-in-law got a couple of polkas going but she got a case of the vapors and had to quit. It might not have been the vapors though. The good lady had been hitting the highballs pretty hard all day.
After doing some of the traditional wedding stuff like pushing cake into each others face, tossing the bouquet and listening to a few toasts my bride and I decided to slip away on our honeymoon trip. When we got out to our car we discovered that the car was covered with green lettering with witty sayings describing various marital acts and the usual “just married” signage. But we also discovered that a couple of my wife’s clever cousins had taken the air out of both of the tires on the passenger side of the car. I had one of my famous temper tantrums. The guys took the tires up to a gas station to re-inflate them. Unfortunately when the boys took the air out of the tires they messed up the part that sealed against the wheel. I had to borrow money from my Dad so we could buy a couple of new tires. The guys that did the damage were quite young and had no resources for buying tires. Kids didn’t have credit cards back then. Finally everything got fixed up and my bride and I hit the road heading for Niagara Falls. The reception went on for another twenty four or thirty six hours. A good time was had by most, we heard.
So our bargain wedding was pretty great and pretty cheap even if you add in the cost of two new tires. People had fun and no one was seriously injured. I don’t think a ten thousand dollar wedding would have been any more effective in the results. Not long after plenty of those high dollar affairs the couples end up in divorce court, a place we’ve managed to avoid, so far.
That’s the story of our wedding. There may be some other details that I could relate that are a lot more embarrassing. But family harmony is important so they’ll go left unsaid. However when I do the story of our honeymoon enough detail will be included to embarrass at least one of the participants. That episode will be coming soon.
Have a fine day.
2 comments:
Honeymoon details eh?? Still hoping to make it to 41??? Good stuff and considering how ancient the historical events unfolded I'm impressed with the detail although it must be said there's no independent verification for accuracy. Nice account Cuz!
I was in the Navy for less than 2 months when you got hitched.
Jan was a young 18 and Jerry was probably sneaking some of the spirits.
We could ask one of the brothers for his account to verify the truicities of this story.
I think I just made up that word but I think I like it.
Now on to part II of my fine day.
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