Always a Bridesmaid

This morning I went with a good friend to the final fitting of her wedding dress.  In 11 days, I'll be on the beach in a considerably warmer location than here, wearing a sundress and flowers in my hair and watching my friend marry a sweet fellow. 

That will be wedding number six for the year.  I was invited to three others, but the location and timing of those made it impossible for me to go.  This past weekend I was at one, with opera singers and little girls reciting Winnie-the-Pooh poems and a bride looking up at her groom with shining eyes full of hope.  The week before I sat with a bride friend looking at pictures from her September wedding. 

Even after all these weddings I'm still a bit fascinated by the ritual of the whole thing.  You've got a couple, a dress, some music, some pretty words and promises, some flowers, a cake, and food, but the amount of variation in these basics still takes me a little bit by surprise.  Some friends turn out to be more religious than I might expect; others more secular.  Some brides are frantic and others are laid-back.  Some grooms are involved and others appear to be reluctant participants in a drill.  Everyone I know is operating on a limited budget, but some went for elaborate invitations and flowers and centerpieces while others went all-out on food or music.  I find I can't predict ahead of time what choices my friends and relatives might make. 

I wonder if it's because of the fairy-tale princess fantasy of weddings.  Most women I know have fantasized about their own wedding, at least a little bit, from a very early age.  Most also have moms who have been fantasizing about the same thing.  I wonder what part of the choices people make are driven by a need to fill out a pre-scripted childhood fantasy, and what are driven by present-day aesthetics? 

Even when I was engaged, way back when, I didn't spend much time imagining my own wedding.  My own mother and father were married only reluctantly (my feminist mother wishing to make a political statement), a few days prior to my birth, by a friend of theirs who had become a minister to escape the draft.  It was a hazy, hippie time, and I've never been able to get particularly clear details on whether, or what, the ceremony included.  So my own mother's left me no legacy of floating-white-dress expectations, no heirloom lace, no beaded veil.  The times friends have asked me how I might envision my own wedding I get a little embarrassed, thinking the whole concept seems a bit old-fashioned.  But the idea of a party with my favorite people in the world, that most people I invite will HAVE to come to, is appealing.  Good food, good drink, great music seem important.  Oh yeah, and an excellent groom.  So far, that's still in the range of fantasy. 

Comments

[Patrick]

Your post today (about 6 weddings so far in 2004) reminds me of something I heard a couple of nights ago. It was the best fragment of a conversation I ever heard.

As two guys walked past me on the Las Vegas Strip, right when they got into just the right range for me to hear them above the loud noise of the Strip, one said to the other, "man, I done been shot three times THIS YEAR." That was all I heard.

Best fragment ever.

And 6 weddings is better than 3 bullets any day.

[b]

6 times can break the bank, Wish they had a frequent buyer program for place napkin holders.

enjoy the warm weather, Is it true lots of people meet their life partners at weddings?

[EFG]

I never envisioned a wedding, either, like I hear so many women do. (Though I think that's a gross generalization.) So when I got married I just turned it into a big party with all my loved ones, and it was fabulous. It is what you make it and it depends on how much you buy into the Wedding Industry Complex.

[Denise]

My last wedding (I've had 3) was just that -- an awesome party where everyone I wanted in my life joined in. We had a great time, it might have been the best party that I've ever been too. Of course, the 'groom' was pretty cool, too.

[Haven]

I was in 13 weddings before I finally married at age 29. My mother used to laugh and say "always a bridesmaid, neverf a bride" I am now 56 yrs. old. All of my college friends fantasized about our weddings. Our big thing was choosing our china and silver patterns. It seemed that the wedding was more important than the groom in the late 60's and early 70's. I didn't have a "real" wedding because my groom had been previously married...twice actually. Instead we went to St. Simons Island, Ga. We had planned a lovely small wedding. Three couple friends of ours drove down the next day and we were married in the courtyard of the King and Prince Hotel by an Episcopal minister. My former sister-in-law recently said it felt like being in a movie. It was incredibly relaxed and fun and very classy and understated. My parents had both died as had the groom's. The wedding was perfect...the marriage didn't last. I am now married to a great guy and have been for 20 years. Which wedding was the best??
The first!!!
My mother was married during WWII. At that time it was considered bad taste to wear an elaborate wedding dress since all the silk, etc. went to the war effort. Most of the brides at that time were married in fairly dressy suits.

[PG]

I have little interest in the wedding beyond good friends, food and fun, but I admit to a big interest in the china.