Sophie dressed and went to sit in her window; she could see the church spire above the trees. In less than an hour she would be beneath it getting married...The car came and they got in and were driven the short distance to the church, and, Sophie being Sophie, there was no nonsense about being late...The Awakened Heart
How many brides are late to their weddings? Just wondering? In most American weddings that I've been to the bride gets dressed at church in the Bride's room. Is this just a Catholic thing? Betty Brigid got dressed in her future Irish cottage, but she was at church before me for the pre-wedding photos.
ReplyDeleteI've been to weddings that started late, but it was just the process of taking those pre-ceremony photos or corralling ring bearers, and flower girls or missing groomsmen that held things up. I was nearly late for Betty Ariel's wedding, but that's cuz I was across the street from the church at the reception hall finishing the last things, getting dressed and curling my hair in the hall bathroom! With my youngest sister's help I got there just in time to be walked down the aisle to my pew.
So were any of you late on your big day?
Wasn't late.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall ever being at a wedding where anyone was seriously late. Delayed start once when a bride's dressed got stepped on in the vestibule and had to be stapled together. ;-)
The current practice here of having a two-three hour delay between wedding and reception is growing most annoying. If you've traveled any distance for the day, you likely have no place to go for that time, and there you are in wedding finery, all dressed up and no place to go! I once attended a wedding with a planned 2 hour gap that turned into 4 hours! There was not one person who wasn't annoyed by the time that reception began, except perhaps the bar tender at the cash bar.
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Oh - and kudos to Betty Henry! My head was spinning by the time I'd read all that but it was extremely helpful!
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Betty Suzanne (the Hanna Betty just older than Betty Keira) was seriously late to her own wedding (I think she was picking up her bouquet and ran out of gas)...so late that the hired clergyman who was to perform the wedding was throwing a bit of a fit. He had other weddings to perform that day, and he was not going to miss them...she ended up firing him!!! She and her husband were married by a Superior Court Judge who was just finishing his round of golf (the wedding was outdoors at a country club). The replacement officiater was great - and frankly, it's the only time I've seen anyone get married by a person who was wearing shorts. No worries, they were tasteful.
ReplyDeleteI was five minutes late meeting my husband to our wedding--he was sweating bullets as I am never late but since I was in my parent's tasteful (yes) RV driving up State Street (all the way to American Fork! (This will mean something awful to some Bettys)) and hitting every red light...
ReplyDeleteWe were married in the morning. My husband had to sprint back down the aisle before the service started to remove the tube of toothpaste from his jacket pocket (he's a stickler for dental health). And he's been slowing us down ever since.
ReplyDeleteHis grandad jumped up in the middle of the ceremony and said he'd "be right back". Our minister looked confused but filled in the time admirably with "announcements". Grampa came back with a present, insisted that we open it and sat back down. Being Dutch Reform (yup, married a D who is neither R nor a D), he didn't feel that our United Church minister was putting enough Jesus into the ceremony. Hence the mid-wedding bible.
Betty Caitlin, I love your Grampa-in-law. There's never enough Jesus in weddings these days. :)
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I, the bride, was forgotten (pre-cell phone days) at the hairdresser's until finally my brother-in-law and uncle showed up to take me straight to the church, where I was by myself in the bride's room for at least 20 minutes until everyone else arrived. I don't recommend being forgotten at the hair salon, but the quiet time alone turned out nice.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the wedding party was all staying at Embassy Suites, where it turned out, two weddings were taking place that day at the same time in the atrium. The grooms, groomsmen, and ushers all got stuck in the their rooms because if they opened their doors they instantly were in someone else's wedding ceremony. At the words, "...pronounce you man and wife" they burst out and raced to my church, causing a delay of half an hour--the guests meanwhile were being serenaded by my student butchering the organ pieces.
We're still married.
p.s. No delay for the reception--we just walked down to the church's fellowship hall/parlor. Ah, the good ol' days.
This is something that comes up in Dorothy Sayers a few times, and in other books of that era - apparently in 'society' weddings of the '20s and '30s, there was a fashion for late-arriving brides, though per Sayers the guests didn't appreciate it. And I do think, if the point of being 'fashionably (and usually irritatingly) late' is to be noticed, a bride would not need to deploy the tactic.
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