Bridezillas

After church today, I was flipping through TV channels and happened upon a network that was showing marathon presentations of a program called Bridezillas.  It's a reality-based show about outspoken women planning their weddings...and how crazy things can get.  Unless things are exaggerated just for the purpose of the show, I am appalled!  It put my memory back to my own wedding planning days.  I think my parents got lucky to have ME for the bride!

My first wedding--the only "big" one--was to occur in early August after my fiance' and I graduated from college in June.  (This was 1969, a whole world apart from the way things are now!)  Tom's family was all in the northwest suburbs of Chicago:  Des Plaines, Paletine, and Rolling Meadows.  Most of my family was in the western suburbs.  His grandparents were first-generation Belgian on both sides and they were all very Catholic.  Although I was not Catholic, I took catechism just to see if I could be (I couldn't) and acquiesced to have our wedding in a mass at St. Stephen Protomartyr Church in Des Plaines, IL.  We had to go through counseling with the priest and have the "banns" posted for six weeks in that parish.  We did everything according to Hoyle.

Meanwhile, I remember my mother warning me that so many brides and mothers-of-the-bride got into fights about wedding plans, due to tension, etc.  I think she was anticipating it would happen to us, but no!  Why didn't it?  I was pretty naive.  I knew NOTHING about wedding planning.  I wanted it to be a special day, but I was more focused on getting my first teaching job, figuring out where we would live, etc., than to be focused on just that one day.  (And no, my groom and I didn't live together prior to the wedding!) 

I don't remember a lot about the whole wedding planning deal.  My parents had just put me through four years of college at their expense.  I wasn't looking for a blow-out.  At my parents' suggestion, it was decided that the reception would be held at the Officer's Club at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, IL.  (My dad was an officer.)  There was to be booze, of course, and finger foods...and wedding cake.  (I don't remember picking out a cake.  Maybe the Officer's Club took care of that?)  There was to be no band...just food and fellowship on the lakefront.  A very nice venue!  We did nothing about decorations.  That was all left up to the OC folks, I guess.

When it came time to pick out a wedding dress, Mom and I went to a bridal/formal shop somewhat close to home.  (If you've ever watched the show Say Yes to the Dress, you know that this is a big deal for many brides who spend thousands of dollars on a wear-once bridal gown.)  I had no idea what I wanted!  The very first gown that the clerk showed us was a dress that had been canceled by another bride...a real steal.  I tried it on, liked the way it looked, and took it!  It was the first and only gown I tried on.  I doubt that we were even in that shop more than an hour.  That gown cost my parents all of $100 or $150...I forget which...but I have this mental picture of my mother breathing a huge sigh of relief.  Even by 1969 standards, it was cheap!  While we were there, we looked into bridesmaid dresses.  I don't have a clue where it came from, but I had the notion that I wanted my bridesmaids in yellow dotted-swiss dresses, and it just so happened that the shop had some!  (I dare anyone to look for ANY dresses made of dotted swiss fabric these days!)  Anyway, they were affordable, so those arrangements were made.  Done!

Back then, brides "registered" for fine china and crystal stemware and silver flatware.  (Nothing else.)  I did that.  Thank God no one really bit on that for us.  We were to live in a 10 x 45-foot trailer in Normal, IL, and had no need for those fancies!

I remember very little else about the whole experience.  I do remember that my parents looked great on my wedding day and were in their element at the reception.  Everyone I loved was there, except for my grandparents who could not attend due to my grandmother's health concerns.  According to my mother, Tom and I left the reception too soon because the party was just getting going when we departed.  Damn!

I ran across a receipt for the wedding reception a couple of years ago.  It cost my parents $1,500.  There were no "planning fights".  I think the only person really put out that day was my brother-in-law who somehow inherited the job of returning my father's sister (Aunt Lucy) and her entourage to another suburb.  (Aunt Lu was a character.  It was best for everyone that she left early!) 

The marriage didn't last.  Tom had an emotional breakdown caused by things I knew nothing about when I married him.  For that reason alone, had I been Catholic, I could have had the marriage annulled.  As it was, I just shook his hand and let him go five years later.  Still, I don't think my parents regretted spending the money on a great party!  (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

I was NOT a "Bridezilla".  Life goes on after the wedding.  Shame on the selfish gals of today who spend so much money on somethat that might not last!