| General Non-Fiction posted September 18, 2022 | Chapters: |
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Change isn't always bad.
A chapter in the book A Fly on the Wall
On...The End of Simple Weddings
by Rachelle Allen
| Background My observations and assessments of everyday life. They are presented randomly, rather than in chronological order. |
February 15, 2016
The rise of shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Say Yes to the Dress and just about anything on YouTube has changed weddings from “special occasions” to “showstopping productions.”
Hand-written vows recited at sunset on a weedy beach before a handful of casually dressed friends and a mail-order-certified officiate are as unthinkable as spats and a handlebar mustache. Today’s weddings and everything (Ev. Ry. Thing!) that leads up to them must be (a) bigger than life and (b) posted on social media in order to count because, as everyone knows, if there’s not a video of it, it never happened.
It begins with the proposal. No more private, candle-lit dinners between high school sweethearts who’ve fallen in love. No gazing into each other’s eyes and then bringing out a small, tasteful-but-lovely ring at the perfect moment to offer up with words of love and eternal devotion.
No! Subtleties like these would never do for the Va-Va-Voom Generation.
Today’s proposals are bestowed with grandiose gestures: skywriting, marquee billboards or, best of all, because the audience would be worldwide, on the jumbotron at some televised major league sporting event. Surely nothing could scream love and intimacy more than that!
Then, of course, there’s the ring, itself.
Less than a carat? What? How insulting! That’s all the love you can muster? And a mass-produced setting instead of a one-of-a-kind designer variety? Talk about a constant reminder of your lack of deep love and adoration for Precious Snookums! Who these days doesn’t know that going into five-figure hock has “I love you” written all over the installment loan papers like nothing else could?
Next comes choosing a venue. It must be spacious enough to accommodate eight hundred of a couple’s closest friends. Whittle down the guest list? What a gauche and antiquated concept! Mom and Dad are shelling out for all of it, so spare no expense! Grandma and Grandpa will help, too, if need be. *Snap-snap* Garcon! Champagne and caviar all around, at once, please!
On to the dress. The. Dress. But, again thanks to the we-just-can't-be-crass-enough Kardashians, now brides need TWO wedding dresses: one for the church and one for the reception. So, a four-digit price tag, times two. But, like with the ring, Schmoopie is soooo worth it. After all, it is *HER*SPECIAL*DAY!
Just for the amusement of watching what quizzical looks it will garner, mention this fact to anyone heading to a bridal shop: In 1975, when Hillary Rodham was about to become Bill Clinton’s wife, she picked her wedding dress off the rack at Dillard’s Department Store in Arkansas on the Friday afternoon before her Saturday nuptials. And this was only because, a half-hour earlier, her mother had asked to see the dress, and Hillary suddenly realized she’d neglected to buy one. The woman might have some rather glaring faults, but being a Bridezilla is definitely not one of them.
Oh, and no one shops for a wedding dress without an entourage anymore. At least a dozen friends and family members have to accompany you, and you must capitulate to their feelings about your gown or they will cause a scene and humiliate you. It’s all part of the fun.
Myself, I made the dresses for both of my weddings –the first one, on the morning of The Big Day. (Not to worry. The wedding wasn’t until 6 p.m., and my dress was a good five inches above my knees, so we’re talking a very small quantity of fabric and seriously abbreviated seams. I was done by 10:30 a.m.) The dress for the next wedding was a jacket with sixteen pearl-sized buttons down the front and a calf-length skirt, so that one, I made on the eve of my wedding.
Next on the list of bridal requisites is the bachelorette party. It may be the “destination” variety –Vegas, Cozumel, New York City– or, if your friends aren’t that fun (read: flush), you can always settle for a three-day drunken spa-fest at the ritziest hotel in town. Nothing reminds a future bride how much she loves her fiancé more than spanking the muscled buttocks of her own personal half-naked Chippendale performer in front of all her drunken friends.
Finally! The Big Day!
Full hair, nails and make-up application at an expensive salon for the mothers, grandmothers and everyone in the bridal party, including the flower girls. Just because they’re in pre-school doesn’t mean they shouldn’t wear lipstick, mascara and foundation, for heaven’s sake!
And now, at last! The cathedral doors open, and the vocalist, from on-high in the choir loft, begins the couple’s special song.
Incredibly, –and this still seems like I must have dreamt it, but I swear to you, this really happened– one time, I was hired as a wedding vocalist to perform “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” from Jesus Christ Superstar, as the bride walked down the aisle.
Here are some of the lyrics. They’ll make you understand why the bride’s father gawped and hyperventilated like a carp in a mud puddle the entire way down the aisle, as the bride turned deeper and deeper shades of crimson with each step:
I don’t know how to love him,
what to do, how to move him.
He’s a man; he’s just a man.
And I’ve had so many men before,
in very many ways.
He’s just one more.
Later, I learned that, until that moment, the bride had never really “listened” to the words of her chosen song. She’d heard them, of course, but she’d never really “listened.” Plus, she liked the melody...and, after all, it WAS from Jesus Christ Superstar! Like, how much more church-appropriate could it be?
The ceremony zips by with a wham-bam-thank-you-all-for-coming-now-let’s-parTAY kind of vibe.
And then it is followed by, perhaps, the most aggrandized spectator sport of all –or at least that was the case this past weekend at my husband’s cousin’s son’s wedding.
The newest fad at receptions comes in the form of entertainment by the attendants as they enter and are announced. Gone are the times when attendants were simply the honored-to-have-been-asked supporting cast to the celebrated bride and groom. Now, everyone must get big-time noticed, and the crazier the antics they exhibit as they enter, the better their chances of getting to be attendants at other friends’ weddings in the future.
For this wedding, the All-Time Winner for Being Noticed and Remembered Forevermore, No Close Seconds, was Ashley, the groom’s sister.
She’d been preceded by her brother, the best man, a twenty-five-year-old scraggly waif of a boy, who was carried in, like a bride across the threshold, by the tall, strapping, athletic-looking Maid-of-Honor. It was highly amusing visual schtick that gave everyone a good, hearty laugh.
My husband and I then watched as portly four-foot-ten Ashley, standing just inches from our table as she waited to be announced next, took on the look of someone who did not want to be outdone by her brother. “Get down on all fours!” she hissed to her hulking groomsman.
“Huh?” he said, incredulous.
She frantically commanded again, “Get down on all fours! Hurry!”
Miraculously, he complied, whereupon Ashley rucked up her cranberry-colored satin bridesmaid dress so that she could climb onto his back and begin to straddle his substantial girth with her Vienna sausage legs.
Immediately, her snug satin dress rolled up like a dime-store window shade and puckered around her waist like a misshapen Hoola Hoop. We in the audience took in her ample harvest moon, mitigated only slightly by the teeny-tiniest little triangle of thong that, in keeping with today’s penchant for paying attention to every last detail, was the identical shade of cranberry as her now belt-like bridesmaid dress.
Before she could make any adjustments, the DJ announced the couple, and the oblivious groomsman barreled forth on all fours –as he’d been commanded-- at lightning speed, like an attacking grizzly bear. Meanwhile, the nearly-naked Ashley held on for dear life and screeched high and loud like an opera diva during the grand finale.
Best. Wedding Moment. EVER!
And to think all week long, I’d been pining away for the good ole days of “simple” weddings. Sometimes, it’s just downright embarrassing how out-of-touch I can be.
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