Week Twenty: Bride and Groom Party

Truly, the Wedding Madness is Only Beginning.

Thankfully, I've only had to live through one wedding. It was my own, and my principal responsibilities in preparing for the event were:

1) Popping the question.
2) Helping select the rings.
3) Being present when a tuxedo was chosen for me.
4) Keeping the baggy tuxedo trousers from falling to my ankles during the ceremony.

My bachelor party consisted of dinner with my brothers at a restaurant I've forgotten and a swing through the newly-opened Fred Meyers. We're not exactly party people, you see.

Had I been aware of the Cokesbury Party Book, however, we might have indulged in something akin to the Bride and Groom Party. I'd still reveal myself and my family as not exactly party people, but at least the party would have been more than strolling through the produce aisles.

So let's move on to the first party suggestion that shows how technology does indeed keep marching on:

Telegrams. The leader asked each one present to write a telegram of congratulations to the bride and groom on a telegraph blank that had been provided. Some of these will be serious and some humorous. The groom in this case asked the group not to send the telegrams collect. The bride was asked to read the messages, to which each had signed his name or initials. Instead of telegrams, a variation of this is to have the boys write advice to the bride and the girls advice to the groom, and have these ready by the bride and groom.

Somehow, I don't see this working with e-mail or text blanks.

The next game is, subtly, for the groom to use to test the worldiness and otherwise attachment of his wife to frippery. If it be kitchen frippery, so much the better. I know I will be beaten for that. In my defense, let me say: I do an awful lot of dishes in my house, and occasionally cook. IN fact, I cooked dinner two nights this weekend, so please, ladies, put the pitchforks and torches down. Maybe this attitude explains why this couple, pictures below, chose to have their wedding ceremony in a cemetery, of all places. "Mention a spatula to me once, Food Boy, and you'll be buried here alive."

But on with the game which, you'll note, involves your whistle:

Articles the Bride and Groom Will Need in the House. After the couples have been seated in a circle, each girl is provided with a paper and pencil. The leader tells the couples that when the whistle is blown they are to start writing the names of household articles (not food) on the girls' papers. They are to write only those articles that begin with the letter A. The boy is to do the writing and the girl offer suggestions. When this has been going on for about a minute, the whistle is blown again and the boys are asked to move to the next girl on their left in the circle. They are to write now the names of articles beginning with B. As the group advances through the alphabet the leader should shorten the time allowed so as to keep the moving fast. It is not necessary to go all through the alphabet; but when the boys get around to their original partners, the game should stop and the boys asked to count the number of words the girls have. The girl having the longest list wins a prize.

The next game, a mock wedding ceremony, is entertaining in its own right and is a bit of cultural anthropology, as a lot of 1930s slang comes out of the suggested script. Cokesbury suggests that the ten participants practice the ceremony beforehand. Make sure to find a "preacher" who is loquacious and capable of memorizing a lot of material, as the whole ceremony goes on for two pages in small print. I'll reproduce choice bits here:

Friends and fellow-citizens, lend me your ears. We are not here to bury this couple but to marry them. This occasion is very solemn, yea, almost tragic; for we have gathered together to join this man and this woman into the state of wedlock, from whose bourne no traveler ever returns -- except by way of alimony. This event is tragic in that after years of fishing a sucker has been caught. This should teach us all that those who nibble must look out for the hook. This couple comes before me today believing that two can live as cheaply as one -- which they can as long as one of them does not eat or buy new clothes. Amen.

Those who know their Shakespeare will recognize the quoted material. Those who don't can click on the links. All should click on the final link in this excerpt, which will bring you to Will Rogers, another of the world's great writers, according to Cokesbury. It is fun to see the cultural references in this bit, and it kind of shows off the classical education folks got in the 1930s. Try saying this today and you might get a few who will say, yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar, but there'll be damn few who'll know what you're talking about. And they're all dead.

Here's another bit:

(Just after rings are exchanged; they're joke rings, really brass curtain rings)

Since time immoral brass has been a symbol of wedded love. The bride from the day of the wedding begins to display brass. The groom is found to have plenty of brass. The display of brass will never end, so this brass ring is made in an unbroken circle. Take it, sir, and place it on her thumb and repeat after me these words: "With this ring I thee wed, and with all my earthly possessions I do thee endow, payable in a weekly allowance of four dollars, out of which you must buy the groceries and your clothes, pay for the milk and ice, laundry and gas." Amen.

Yeah, lots of chuckles, and a bit of slang: Brass. It was dashing then. Sounds kinda cute today.

Now it's on to refreshments. If you didn't ask a guest to bake a wedding cake, get one from a bakery (again, "bakery" sounds kinda cute today. I'm not sure a tray of Starbucks biscotti would be the same). Let the bride-to-be cut the cake. Then ask where the real party is.

Kinda tame this week, yes. But wait until next wee, when you'll spend an Evening With the Gods. Shazbot.