Call me crazy, but recently I attended a wedding for a couple I’d never met. And if you think that’s weird, wait’ll I tell you I attended the wedding in my bathrobe. Yes, friends, I’m talking about the NBC Today show’s Martha Stewart wedding of Cody and Jessica, and I was hooked.
Now we have a lot of nutty wedding traditions in this country, but trust me when I say this annual television event is one of the more bizarre. To attain the esteemed honor of saying “I do” before millions of strangers, engaged couples from across America competed to become Today’s bride and groom with the viewing audience making the final selection. The “prize” was a glamorous Martha Stewart wedding with a grand escape honeymoon to follow. I can barely write this without getting all a-twitter.
Young Cody and Jessica from Arizona were voted the audience favorite, and in subsequent weeks voters decided the choice of rings, wedding gown, attendants’ attire, wedding cake and even where the couple would scamper off to spend their honeymoon. Handling the details was wedding coordinator extraordinaire, Martha Stewart. I was beside myself with anticipation.
When the big day came, I witnessed the marriage (after the weather break), viewed luscious close-ups of the Martha-arranged bridal bouquet (squeezed in before the stock market report), vicariously enjoyed a post-nuptial glass of champagne with anchors Matt and Meredith (before cutting away to a peanut butter commercial), accompanied Natalie on a tour of the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” reception hosted by the famous Fifth Avenue jeweler (wedged between Ann’s news update and the local traffic report) and gazed at Martha’s toast to the couple (preempted by a “Biggest Loser” promo). Yes, it was a bit odd, but Cody and Jessica were pleasing participants, and I’d grown so fond of the young couple, I felt guilty I hadn’t bought them a gift.
Today’s Martha Stewart wedding was indeed a departure from traditional ceremonies. As the mom of two married daughters, my girls and I traversed the bumpy boulevard of gowns, invitations, flowers, favors and photographers. Each detail opened a new avenue of still more details that we navigated without the aid of the marvelous Martha. Despite our amateur wedding planner status, we pulled off a couple of beautiful weddings, thanks in part to the Internet and e-mail since both daughters flew the nest prior to their engagements. We honored conventional wedding traditions at both ceremonies, i.e. their father beamed and I was a soppy mess.
I don’t know anywhere in the world that gets as wrapped up in wedding traditions as we Americans, and I personally think that we, as a country, blew it big time in one area of wedding protocol. I’m talking, of course, about the wedding gown. How sad that the beautiful (and, relatively speaking, expensive) wedding gown is worn only once before it’s stuffed away forever. Sure, we brides dream that one day we’ll have daughters who’ll grow up and beg to walk down the aisle in our lovely old frocks, but you know how that always turns out. Your precious daughter, the one you fretted over, walked the floor with, sacrificed your social life for and raised to complete perfection inspects your old wedding photographs and says, “Eeeeeuwww, Mom! What were you thinking when you picked out that dress? I mean that is, like, totally messed up!” OK, my daughters were a little gentler, but even I wouldn’t have wanted them to walk down the aisle in my semi-hippy-style early 1970s extravaganza.
But we Americans should definitely take a cue from India. My friend Binoo grew up in India where they have wonderful wedding traditions, and one in particular is my favorite.
During the planning of our younger daughter’s wedding, whenever I saw Binoo she would ask for an update on the wedding arrangements, enjoying the endless minutia connected to American weddings. When I told her that our older, married daughter was doing duty as matron of honor, Binoo said, “Oh – that’s great! She will be able to wear her wedding dress again!” I responded with something intelligent, such as “Huh?” because I assumed Binoo, whose English is quite good, had nonetheless made a simple grammatical error in describing the traditional garment worn by a matron of honor. “Do you mean the bridesmaid’s dress?” I asked. “Oh, no!” she assured me. “Won’t the married women wear their wedding gowns?”
Yep – it seems that in India, weddings (which can last for days) are colorful events where the married women appear attired in their own bridal gowns or saris. Binoo’s question, which was based on her cultural background, produced in my non-worldly all-American mind a very funny mental image of a gaggle of fluffy-white-meringue-gowned attendants preceding my similarly confectionery-clad daughter down the aisle. Identifying the actual bride would pose quite a challenge and, surrounded by all that tulle and white lace poofy-ness, guests would resemble the corps de ballet in a performance of Swan Lake.
In India brides wear brilliantly hued saris; however, let’s not allow that to deter us. I mean, is this a great idea or what? For every wedding they grace with their presence, women – young and old – can haul out their old white-as-the-pure-driven-snow bridal gowns and wear them until they’re tattered and frayed beyond recognition. This is a sure-fire cure for all those legendary Bridezillas that weddings seem to create. How humbling would it be to look around on your wedding day and be faced with all those other women wearing wedding gowns?
Plus how many brides fit into their wedding gowns five or 50 years after their wedding day? As long as there was the teeniest possibility of being invited to a wedding, you would have to fit into that gown. Talk about incentive! In fact, I’d better start now trying to locate my wedding dress just in case this idea catches on. I think I need to let out a few seams.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill
24 years. Reach her at Ga*********@*ol.com.
