The Secret Wedding  

Thursday, September 24, 2015 * Twin Towers Senior Community Chapel

An 87-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman walk into a chapel.  Between them, they have an accumulated 121 years of marriage.  My father’s marriage to my mother accounts for 63 of those years.  But on this Thursday morning, they are at Day One of their marriage to each other.

St. Matthew United Church of Christ is where my dad and Maryann met, and it is also where they had married their now deceased spouses.  They decide to marry in this chapel because it is new to both of them.  And they don’t want a fuss.

My dad, Herb, sits down while the minister fills out the marriage license.  Dad looks dapper in a navy blazer, but his feet hurt (fallen arches and rheumatoid arthritis).  Maryanne looks pretty, trim, and fit in her new blue dress with her borrowed blue bracelet.  (I told her Dad could count as her “something old.”)  She is wearing attractive bone-colored shoes; the ones she planned to wear hurt her big toe.

Rick and I were to be the only witnesses, but two instructors from Dad and Maryanne’s Tai Chi class at Twin Towers find out and crash the wedding.

My dad is hard of hearing, so I’m worried that he won’t be able to repeat the vows the pastor feeds him, but Dad says them loud and clear.  I see him winks at Maryanne when he finishes.  “Till death do us part.”

And, yes, he kisses the bride.  They are not just companions, you see.

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At the beginning of the Tutus and Tiaras Pub Run before the bride changed out of her white tutu.

The Surprise Wedding

Saturday, September 26, 2015 * Smale Park on the Ohio River

A 37-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman stand before 57 friends wearing tutus and tiaras.  The bride is our daughter, and the groom is Nathan, a young man we’ve grown to love over the last three years.

This is the third stop in the Dirty Martinis’ annual Tutus and Tiaras Pub Run, and as the runners grabbed their water bottles (which contained champagne punch) fifteen minutes before,  a woman in a red dress, Angel,  instructed them to sit on the lawn and face her.  Then she announced that they were about to witness Stacey and Nathan’s wedding.

Everyone screams.  I scream the loudest, because I am the loudest, and because the wedding is a complete surprise to my husband and me.  Nathan had asked us to be here for a wedding proposal, not a wedding ceremony.  (It seems that my soon-to-be son-in-law is gifted liar.)

But my younger daughter, Allison, has known for six months, and I turn to see her walking down the steps carrying a bouquet.  What?  She’s still in Norway, right?  Wrong!  She has flown in to witness her sister’s wedding.

Then Nathan comes down the steps wearing a suit and tie, not running shoes or a tutu or a tiara.  And then, here comes the bride!

The officiant, Angel, (who is actually an angel) explains that Nathan and Stacey chose to have this surprise wedding in the presence of their best friends, the members of the Dirty Martinis running club.  When Stacey and Nathan began their lives together, they made new friends through this Meet-Up group.  Angel says, “There is no better team than these two.”

Then Nathan reads the vows he’s written for Stacey:  “. . . I love your silly side, but I love your serious side, too.  Before we started dating, I loved you for being perfect, and then I found out you were not perfect, and then I loved you even more.  You are my friend, my lover, my confident, my rock. . .”

And Stacey reads the vows she’s written for Nathan: “We complement each other in every way . . . I love you because you are a real man—or dude, I didn’t know what was appropriate for the occasion.  I love that I will never have to carry a heavy suitcase or fix a toilet, and I love that you don’t make me feel fat when you pick me up at the end of a race . . .” (That got a lot of oohs and ahhhs from the ladies.)  “ . . . Most of all I love you because you are a big strong man who has a heart . . . I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, forever and ever.”

The bride and groom, their parents, and 57 runners donning tiaras and tutus proceed to Goodfellows in Over the Rhine for the reception.

The cake was decorated with logos from the races Nathan and Stacey ran together. Three Sweet Girls Cakery in Kenwood and OTR

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The Long-Awaited Wedding

Saturday, October 10, 2015 * Landmark on the Park in New York City

The 34-year-old bride and the 31-year-old groom will walk down the aisle in two weeks. It’s a modern love story:  An American lawyer (my daughter, Allison) meets a Norwegian engineer (Henrik Olav-Osvik) in a Mexican dance club and fall in love.

After their civil ceremony in Oslo

It will be a second marriage for both—to each other.  They had to marry in the Oslo City Hall in July so Allison could apply for her residential visa.  She fell in love with a Viking, and she plans to make Oslo, Norway, her home.

Learning to fish in Norway

For Allison, though, her New York wedding, her second wedding to Henrik, is THE wedding.  It’s the wedding she always imagined, the one with a long white gown and veil, flower girls, and her dad giving her away.  There will be favors and programs and place cards. There will be fish and beef entrees, Aquavit and champagne, Norwegian and English readings.   Like many modern American brides, Allison has a wedding website that describes their three-year international courtship and introduces their international wedding party.

In a week, worlds will collide.  Guests will arrive from Norway and all across America to witness their commitment, and two families from opposing shores of an ocean will toast their union and pledge their support.

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Does it make sense to get married in 2015?

Some Norwegians may be puzzled by Allison’s desire to have a big wedding, much less two.  For a very long time, there has been no stigma associated with cohabitation or having children out of wedlock in Norway, and Norwegians seem to have a more relaxed attitude than Americans about if and when to get married.

Attitudes about marriage are evolving in the U.S. as well.  Cohabitation is common, and the stigma associated with it is waning.  I can’t recall a wedding I’ve attended recently where the bride and groom were not already living together.  I dreaded telling my parents that my older daughter had moved in with her boyfriend fifteen years ago, but such a revelation would barely raise an eyebrow in 2015.

Modern women don’t need to attach themselves to a man for financial reasons; they have their own careers.  Women don’t need husbands to raise children–or even to conceive them.  It is estimated that 25% of all millennials will never marry.  On average, women today who do marry wait seven years longer (until age 27) than when my mother walked down the aisle in 1949.

While a record number of Americans will never marry, 75% of millennials are still expected to tie the knot.  A recent Time article asks, “Is Monogamy Over?”   The author gives scientific evidence that monogamy isn’t natural, but concludes, “It’s nice.”

My father and Maryanne, Stacey and Nathan, and Allison and Henrik are choosing to make their commitment to monogamy public and legal, even though there is no compelling practical reason to do so.  They just want to say, “I do,” and they want their friends and family to hear them say it.  Yes, it’s nice.

If you enjoyed this piece, you might also enjoy my other posts related to love, marriage, and family:

Making Love:  The Truth About a 43-year Marriage  

Bite Nite:  A Fun Family Food Tradition 

Why Women Love to Be Home Alone  

Life, Death, and Fish Tacos:  The Absolutely True Story About a Medical Mistake in San Diego

How to Travel With Your Husband Without Killing Him  

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