Ultimate Wedding: Is That Big Wedding Necessary?

Is That Big Wedding Necessary?
An increasing number of couples are said to be eloping because they can't bear going through the ordeal of a conventional wedding. Far from disapproving, Miss Ultimate Wedding would be suspicious of anyone planning a big wedding who didn't sigh at least once about how much nicer it would be to elope. Someone so seduced by the envisioned glory of the occasion as to fail to remark, "Darling, don't you just wish the two of us could slip away without all this fuss?" (not necessarily putting down the three-ring notebook with the telephone numbers of florists and bands) probably shouldn't be getting married.

Yet Miss Ultimate Wedding would also like to caution against impetuous elopement, and not only because wily caterers have come to require a deposit. Avoiding fuss is something she can understand. So let's talk fuss.

In some cases, it is the competing desires of relatives and friends that are thought to create too much fuss. Families want the wedding held in one place, friends in another; the bride and bridegroom come from different cultural or religious backgrounds, perhaps from more than one each; the older generation's idea of festivity is different from the younger's; and everyone seems to have enemies among those who ought to be invited.

This situation strikes Miss Ultimate Wedding as an excellent opportunity for the couple to learn how to placate others and negotiate compromise, surely requirements for family life. Elopement is merely the kind solution to avoid all-out warfare between irreconcilable factions (which means something more than the couple's wanting a rock band and the parents' wanting old show tunes) and lasting animosities that would obliterate the fact that marriage is the joining of two families.

The fuss that others want to avoid is the time and energy, not to mention money, involved in putting on a lavish production. They are quite right. Running a three-day show for hordes of business acquaintances is neither necessary nor tasteful.

What does seem to be necessary to the human spirit is some sense of ritual connected with so momentous a step in life. It amuses Miss Ultimate Wedding that people who have talked about getting married for years, and very likely already share a household, are deeply interested in the rituals of the formal wedding. It touches her, too. Presumably there are people who never regret having skipped any semblance of ceremony when they married. But Miss Ultimate Wedding keeps hearing from those who made the decision to marry without any fanfare and are now complaining that they missed out on an entitlement and asking how to make up for it.

Miss Ultimate Wedding seems to have missed the section of the Constitution that guarantees every couple an elaborate wedding. A proper wedding is simply a dignified ceremony, followed by a celebration for those who care about the couple, in a more formal version of the way they usually entertain. It also seems to her that those who married without ritual are free to have post-wedding receptions and then anniversary parties that are as elaborate as they like, but should not feel that the world has cheated them.

What is marriage, if not the ability to make a decision and then stick by it later?

Family Wishes

Q. Believe it or not, I have no desire for a big, traditional wedding. My dream is to elope while on vacation, getting married on a tropical beach. No hassles, no outlandish costs, no pomp and circumstance. How do I handle family and friends who would expect the traditional wedding? Mom, my best friend, would be devastated (I think). I'm the only daughter. What sort of after-event could we have to share our joy with everyone? Is there elopement etiquette?

A. The traditional reason for an elopement was to thwart the hopes, plans, and dreams of the bride's parents, which is why the entire rest of the world sympathized with elopers. Thwarting parents has always had a wide sentimental appeal, even among people who don't know the parents or anyone else concerned.

It is also why the traditional elopement was sometimes followed by the traditional annulment. When the mean and unromantic parents pointed out that the bride was supposed to be in junior high school and the bridegroom was wanted in four states, happily ever after could be prematurely terminated. But even now, when parents are considerably less vigilant, couples elope. They could be eluding mean and unromantic employers with an antinepotism policy.

There are many reasons for an elopement, some of them nicer than others. Perhaps the couple wishes to spare their parents (or themselves) the expense. Or they have been married before and wish to spare others the fuss that may have been made over one or both of them on previous marriages. Perhaps they are thwarting parents in a modernized way—eluding parental ideas of a proper wedding, rather than parental ideas of the proper spouse. Or they consider that the choice of wedding scenery is more important to them than the people who would otherwise be the wedding guests.
Miss Ultimate Wedding has no desire to talk people into big weddings, pomp and circumstance usually being more threatening than encouraging to proper wedding behavior. But pray, what do you call a hassle if it is not causing devastation for your mother (and thus, as you gracefully say, also for your best friend) ? That you may be satisfied with a vacation wedding is not enough if it would cause genuine distress to your mother.

That is not to say others cannot be talked around. If your mother would be satisfied with a big wedding reception upon your return from elopement, Miss Ultimate Wedding certainly has no objection.

Is That Second Big Wedding Necessary?

Q. Please inform us how etiquette applies to the bride's second wedding. When my daughter was married five years ago, the marriage lasted two years and ended in divorce. She has been living for two years with another young man, and they are planning to be married. She wants a large church wedding, complete with white flowing wedding gown and veil and several bridesmaids.

At her first wedding, she received many, many beautiful gifts from our generous family, friends and business associates. She was well supplied with fine and casual china, silver and stainless flatware, and crystal in her chosen patterns.

She intends to select and register new patterns of silver, china, and crystal. I question the propriety, and am embarrassed that our family, friends and associates will feel pressured to give another nice gift.

A. Your daughter quarreled not only with her husband, but with her silverware? My, that is anger. Or did he manage to clean her out during the divorce?
No matter. Miss Ultimate Wedding is addressing her answer to the part about wedding presents to the guests, anyway. Since your daughter will of course only admit to being registered when she is specifically asked, it is they who need to decide whether they need help in figuring out what to give her. Wedding presents, particularly elaborate ones, are not as customary with subsequent weddings as with a first. There is nothing wrong with seeing someone married twice (or however long she plans to keep it up), and sending only a token present after the first time, or even just a letter wishing her well.

There is something wrong about inviting the same people to more than one splashy formal wedding, but people, even amazingly including Miss Ultimate Wedding, are inclined to be indulgent about violations. The truly proper second wedding is small and relatively informal—the bride wears a perfectly smashing suit, in a delicate pastel color rather than white, and an even more smashing hat instead of a veil. She has one honor attendant, not a parade of them, partly because all her old friends now know that her previous promise to them—never mind her promise to her previous bridegroom—was false. They have not had other occasions to wear those bridesmaid dresses she made them buy.

Before Miss Ultimate Wedding is attacked by starry-eyed brides who made one tiny little mistake and now want to go all out for what they insist is their first true marriage, notice that she is waving a tiny, white, lace-edged handkerchief. She is neither so vulgar as to associate the white dress with inexperience, nor so mean as to throw etiquette brickbats in place of rose petals.

Family Disapproval

Q. I am a 36-year-old woman who is living with a man of a different race. My elderly parents do not approve, but have managed, over time, to. cloak their true feelings with a thin veneer of civility. Ed and I are soon to be married in a small civil ceremony and are looking forward to starting a family.

My very elderly godparents live out of state and I have kept them pretty much in the dark with the excuse that I didn't want to "upset" them. I am virtually certain that my parents haven't said anything to my other relatives. If I were suddenly to send an announcement of my marriage, they would all (rightly) wonder why they hadn't heard of Ed before; yet I don't feel a need to explain or justify myself. They will all be shocked and/or horrified by my choice of husband, and, though I abhor their racial prejudices, I wish to be as tactful as possible. My idea for handling the problem was to enclose a photo of us along with the wedding announcement.

A. Miss Ultimate Wedding approves of your approach, in neither challenging your relatives nor explaining your decision, and would only like to make one small suggestion about your solution. A formal wedding announcement out of the blue is, as you say, startling to close relatives. Write them individual letters instead—without referring to your previous silence, because suggesting that an explanation would have upset them is insulting to them, as well as to your husband-to-be.

In a letter, you can offer the usual bridal chitchat—that you and Ed have known each other for a long time, that he's the most wonderful man in the world, and so on—to make it seem that you are ready to include them in your circle should they respond more favorably than you predict. Adding the picture to a letter then becomes not a challenge, but a charming gesture.

In the Family Way
Q. My fiance and I, who have been living together for over a year, set our wedding date six months ahead of time and announced it to our family and friends. We were planning a large church wedding with all the trimmings. Now I suspect that I may be pregnant, and by the wedding date I would definitely be showing. We would like to go forward with our plans regardless. Please advise as to what kind of wedding would be appropriate.

A. For the pregnant bride, a wedding is considered highly appropriate. The one thing Miss Ultimate Wedding believes should be altered is the wedding dress: Let it out in the tummy.