WEDDINGS CAN BE DISASTROUS!

When my husband and I decided we would get married, we didn’t realize what an under-taking it would be. He was stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery Alabama and I was a telephone operator. I had moved to the city to be able to work and naturally met a Yankee airman and fell in love.
We had weird hours and weird off days, so one day he called and said I have a long weekend in three weeks, can you get off? I rearranged my schedule and we started planning. Neither of us had anyone to help. My mother still lived in my hometown 30 miles away and his family was in Pennsylvania. I had to ask one of my uncles’s to give me away; I had lost my Dad when I was fourteen. Of course, he was tickled, but he, too, had to do some arranging since he ran a dairy about 100 miles from us and cows make demanding bosses. I shudder to think how we did this in three weeks. It took almost a year to plan both my daughter’s weddings. What in the world did a nineteen-year-old telephone operator/country girl and a twenty-year-old airman/farm boy know about planning a wedding?
But we had no choice. First; to get a license, he had to have a notarized statement from his parents. Now this was an airman who had been in the service two years, been to Korea for a year and still had to have his parent’s permission to get married!
No problem for me; good thing that was. My mother would have never signed for me. I even had to pick out her dress, buy it, and arrange to get her there! The blood tests were awful, but we finally got that over with plus having to see his commander, the chaplain, and it seemed, everyone on the base. What we both learned about coordination was priceless.
Next, I had to have a wedding dress, so I borrowed one from an airmen’s wife I had met. It had to be shipped from Maine; arrived two days before the wedding and it cost 10 whole dollars to clean in one day! And that was no guarantee that it would come out white. We had the whole wedding for $100, including flowers, the cake, dress, and gratuities to the preacher, organist, etc. I didn’t have a veil or anything near it, nor could I afford a fancy one, so I bought a rhinestone tiara, stitched a long length of tulle to it and it worked fine. I still have the tiara. Our friends did the reception refreshments, but of course, things do not ever go smooth in wedding plans or that has been my experience, starting with my own!
We used the base chapel and left the Easter flowers in the church, no decorations to worry about, although Easter lilies aren’t the usual wedding flowers. We were just about ready to do this. The bridegroom and his friends all had white sport coats, oh, yes; did I mention this was 1960? My blue-eyed airman refused to wear his dress blue uniform, which I really preferred; hence, the white sport coats prevailed. I secretly thought I should have had Marty Robbins singing “White Sport Coat and A Pink Carnation” in the background!
My best friend at the time was my only attendant and she wore her blue prom dress and a pill box hat. Well, I had to have something blue, didn’t I? We had no color scheme, what with the white lilies and greenery already in the church. My mom? She wore a black and white checked organza dress and managed to keep her cool. Actually, I guess she did good to see her only baby go off into ‘the wild blue yonder’ with an airman she had known for four months!
I had already gotten hysterical when we went by the reception hall to check on things. Two friends, one very pregnant, pulled up in a Volkswagen with a three tier cake aboard! I had to send three teens in a nine seat station wagon to pick up my oldest daughter’s cake!
On to the church in evening traffic; one main artery of traffic to a huge air force base caused havoc at six in the evening. The chaplain was getting nervous about the groom being a smidge late. He actually started wringing his hands and looking at his watch about forty times. We were going to sort of go over this thing before the wedding, no wedding rehearsal stuff. The groom finally flew in the side door. My poor fellow kept trying to remember to run his fingers through his hair before putting on the ring since it was a little tight.(Hair oil in that era, you know).
I retired to the only room available for brides; the chaplain’s office. I looked around the office and wondered if they had no where to store the lawn equipment. A lawn mower stood in the middle of the room and as I walked the floor, my gown flitted around me. It was the era of ballerina length skirts, hoops, and sleeves with a thousand buttons going down the arms!
I passed a little too close to the mower and the hoop hung fast on the motor! I couldn’t lean down to get the thing loose because of tight buttoned up sleeves. I heard the wedding march played for the second time. Was I going to have to pull this lawn mower down the aisle? I was well known for antics but this would be over the top even for me.
Finally a groomsman, a childhood friend of mine came to see about me and found me crying and about to have a fit.
All he could do was laugh and comment that he might have known I would have something weird happen at my wedding. Not funny, I said and shot him a nasty look. He got me loose, I grabbed my uncle’s arm, and away I went. I guess we did something right or were afraid to try this again. We have been together for 47 years now.
Oh, I forgot the pictures! We had snapshots made by my aunt with a new Polaroid camera, (they have faded to non-existence), and other snapshots were made. Snapshots? Who could afford a photographer? And these almost got ruined by falling out of my purse into a creek and rescued before the water seeped in. Creek, purse, pictures? I was carrying the pictures to show a couple we were meeting for a picnic. I managed to keep negatives intact over the years and had some redone just recently. I don’t think we were ever that young! I must have gained a ton and the hubby has a full beard now. Hmmm, so that’s what he looked like clean shaven. The youngest daughter who is 34 would never have recognized him; he’s had a beard since she was born. Oh, well, everyone looked young, invincible, and happy. Well no, not everyone. Mama had a forced smile and the chaplain still had a pained look. I still laugh when I think about that day. I have the tiara hanging in my office and I smile every time I look at it. But I don’t think I could do it again, even though silly things happened at all my children’s weddings, nothing compared with my own!