Check out these pictures from a real wedding in 1948. The bride and her attendants wore turkey feather gowns. Oh, and as you can see, the happy couple were pelted not with rice, but with turkey feathers as they headed off to their future.
Gobble gobble!
Meet Cynthia Reese and Michael Bof. This was their wedding day. It wasn’t quite what they’d originally planned, but they’re more than happy with it.
You see, a few weeks after Cynthia and Michael got engaged, they discovered Cynthia was pregnant. Figuring they would need the money they might have spent on a wedding more for raising their first child, the pair decided that sometime before the baby was born, they would just head down to City Hall for a bare bones wedding.
Then again, there didn’t seem to be a particular hurry… that is there wasn’t until monday when, at seven months pregnant, Cynthia’s water broke and she was rushed to the hospital in premature labor.
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Hurricane Sandy has caused untold devastation on the East Coast. There are still people without shelter, power, adequate safe food and water. The full cost will not be known for a while, and rebuilding will take a long time.
Still, there are some bright spots, some feel good stories starting to come out of the horror and loss. One of these stories is a couple named Shelley Ebert and Adam Moser. Their wedding was scheduled for yesterday, and Ebert wrote a piece for HuffPo Weddings about how Sandy has changed their plans.
Change them it did… but where there are women – and men – who would be mourning the loss of their perfect flowers and screaming that the bridesmaid who hadn’t yet picked up her dress when the storm hit can’t be in the wedding, either, this couple doesn’t care about what isn’t going to be there. They’re more concerned with who will be there, what they still have, and in looking forward to spending their one-year anniversary running the New York Marathon together, weather permitting.
The lesson here is that ultimately it’s not about the trappings, lovely and fun though they are. It’s about sharing your love, being surrounded by people who support you, and taking an amazing leap of faith into your own future.
And that, my friends, can be done even in the middle of an actual disaster.
They seem nice enough to me.
Apparently, though, Pauline Bailey, 27, and Paul Carty, 51, were not good enough for one employee of Stoke Park Hotel in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. Michele Connelly did not specify why she felt the couple were unworthy to wed at Stoke Park Hotel, but it seems she found them not ‘the type of people’ who should be allowed to marry there.
And how did the happy couple learn this factoid?
Well, it all started when they tried to book the hotel for their june wedding. They met with Connelly and were given a tour of the facility. They spoke of specific plans. They did not balk at the ten thousand pound price tag, and in point of fact added another thousand pounds to said price tag by asking for a fireworks display. They planned to invite only thirty guests, so it can’t have been that there wasn’t room for all those people, either.
The happy couple went home and waited to hear confirmation of their date… and waited… and waited. After ten days, they contacted Connelly to ask what was happening and why they hadn’t heard back. Connelly emailed back saying she’d been on vacation during that period and they would hear from her shortly.
They did.
The next day, Connelly sent an email to her sales manager, Carlo Zoccali, begging him to give her a way to deny the couple a spot on the calendar.
Too bad for her she cc’d it to Bailey and Carty, too.
The only reason Connelly gave for wanting to put the couple off was that they are ‘not the type of people’ she wanted to rent to. For the record, both are gainfully employed. In fact, Carty works for the Ministry of Defence as an engineer. Bailey is a counsellor. So unless she has an unreasoning prejudice against engineers or counsellors, what is the problem? There has been no accusation or evidence of untoward behavior on the part of the couple in question.
Bailey believes she knows the answer. Her theory? That it’s about the age gap between her and her intended, and possibly his pierced eyebrow.
And that’s why Bailey and Carty are currently seeking legal counsel with an eye to bringing a lawsuit in the matter.
Let that be a lesson to us all to a) do our best to treat all comers as fairly as possible, and b) always be very, very careful to whom we forward our emails.
Sometimes it’s fun to go wandering about on other wedding blogs and take a look at some of the great weddings they feature. Here are a few of my faves from the past week I’d like to share.
First up is a delightful wedding of two handsome Scotsmen in kilts named Chris and Eric, featured on A Practical Wedding.
Kilts, more kilts, a pretty outdoor spot, yet more kilts, people dancing Gay Gordons (and that really is a dance, in fact Mr. Twistie and I did it at our wedding, too) and lots of pretty pictures would have won this wedding a spot on the list anyway, but I love this quote from the grooms most of all:
If you ever wonder how many people love you and how much, have a wedding. You’ll know.
You know what else? That’s absolutely true.
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Take a look at this lovely family portrait. Reading from right to left, that’s Melanie Cannon, Eddie Hanna, and Koda the pit bull mix.
Cannon and Hanna have been engaged for a while, but they’ve lost two wedding funds to emergencies. The first was spent on Hanna’s grandmother’s funeral. The two picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and started over again. Then they heard about an abandoned litter of puppies available for adoption at the Halifax Humane Society. They fell in love with Koda and adopted him.
Unfortunately, Koda, the runt of the litter, turned out to have serious health issues that aren’t covered by the pet insurance the couple got for him. Koda has liver shunt, a condition that will require expensive medications and treatments for life.
Cannon and Hanna love their dog. Of course they spent their second wedding fund on caring for Koda.
And that’s when a miracle happened.
Cannon and Hanna were married on saturday at a celebration estimated to have cost into the ‘tens of thousands’ of dollars, mostly donated by local vendors. The effort was spearheaded by the Halifax Humane Society.
Miguel Abi-hassan, executive director of the Halifax Humane Society, said they did it because Cannon and Hanna’s story ‘really hit home’ with the staff of the shelter.
Local vendors rallied around with flowers, catering, photography, and music, among other services to help the happy couple have the wedding of their dreams.
Sometimes nice people do finish first, and sometimes dreams come true with a little help from other nice people.
I hope you’ll all join with me in wishing the happy couple – and their very special pet – every possible joy.
(Illustration via Wedding Hairstyles HQ)
Today is the annual Zombie Attack in Louisville, Kentucky. It is also the wedding day of Jesse Embry and Jennifer Wilson. In fact, they will be married in a zombie ceremony during the Zombie Attack.
The story line the couple has devised is that they were on their way to their wedding when a horrible accident killed both of them and their entire wedding party… but they decided to get married anyway.
The happy couple will be attended by two zombie flower girls (Embry’s nieces) as well as zombie bridesmaids and groomsmen. They will be married by a zombie pope (a friend of the couple who is ordained). All members of the wedding party will wear makeup to mimic ghastly wounds and clothes that have been customized with scissors, dye, dirt and mud, even blowtorches to give that ‘just died in’ look.
Why choose this theme and this day? Well, turns out there’s a good, sentimental reason behind it all: Jesse and Jennifer had their first official date at Zombie Walk 2009.
They joked for a while about holding their wedding where they held their first day, but after a while decided it felt right and started the serious planning.
I hope you’ll all join with me in wishing them happiness and the best of undead luck.