“My colors are blush and bashful, Mama!” March 10, 2008

There are a few things you must do if you’re from the South and you’re getting married. I got married in Virginia, which I never considered to actually be Southern, since most restaurants don’t serve sweet tea. That is how it’s officially determined, right? But I was from North Carolina, raised in the heart of a good-ol-boy, proper-ladies, family-name-matters, right-side-of-the-tracks tiny Southern town. My parents may have been transplanted from Florida (and themselves had eloped), but twenty years of tea parties and pharmacy lunch counters were not wasted on us. If my wedding was going to be official, there were a few non-negotiables.

1 - Bridal portrait. I often tell people that where I grew up, if you didn’t have a bridal portrait, you weren’t really married. Having pictures taken of the “bride only” on the wedding day most certainly did not count. Most photographers offer engagement/bridal/wedding packages. Since my wedding and wedding photographer were in a different state from where my parents and I (and my groom, come to think of it) lived at the time, I had my bridal portraits taken by a photographer on Main Street, across from the tea room where my bridesmaids’ reception was hosted.

My session was three months and one day before my wedding. My mom had unexpectedly had to leave town to be with her sick mother and wasn’t going to be there for the session. So the night before, my dad and I went and bought a video camera so that he could tape the entire thing. My mom asked her best friend to go with us to assist, and one of my bridesmaids (Kay) came also.

Dad and I on our way to the photographer’s studio

The month before, I had picked up a silk bouquet from our Virginia florist that would be a replica of my wedding bouquet to be used in the bridal portraits. That morning, I had my hair done and veil attached. A quick sandwich in the car, and then it was off to the Mary Kay lady to have my makeup done. I arrived at the photographer at 11am for my three hour session (coincidentally, it was exactly three years before Sherman was born).

The session was pretty standard, and my dad videotaped the whole thing. Sitting, standing, with flowers, without, looking up, looking down, looking over the shoulder, gazing at my engagement ring, etc. Halfway through the session, the photographer’s assistant covered me with a sheet and sat me down for a snack of fruit and cookies and water.  The best picture was actually a candid one, when I had my back to the camera, and I had hesitantly peeked out from my veil (with one finger keeping it out of my lipstick), to see what was going on behind me, and the photographer snapped a photo.

A few weeks later, my mom and dad and I went back to the studio to see the results. We watched all of the portraits projected on the wall in the dark room. My mom’s favorite was a full-length of me looking clearly at the camera holding my bouquet and smiling. My favorite was a full-length of me looking down demurely with a soft focus. We each got our own 16 x 20″ canvas portrait (my mom hates mine because she thinks it makes me look “submissive” or unhappy; I hate hers because it’s so straight on and direct I feel like you can see every flaw - including the seam of my dress under my right arm). Then there were countless 5 x 7s and 8 x 10s that dot my parents’ house today.

our portrait

my mom’s portrait

proof

proof

proof

proof

Of course, these portraits weren’t just for our own use. Both of the framed canvases were displayed at the wedding reception, and a 3/4 length portrait was used in our wedding announcement in three local papers.

2 - Wedding announcements. I’m not sure what wedding announcements are like elsewhere, but in my hometown they usually took up half a page each and included every detail of the wedding gown, the bridesmaids’ dresses, and each shower, party, reception, or tea thrown in honor of the couple, including a reprint of the couple’s education, Greek, and employment information from the engagement announcement. And the photo is of the bride, not the couple. It appears in the paper the day after the wedding, so how could it have an actual wedding photo?

my announcement photo

Incidentally, since my husband was not a local boy, and he has two middle names, my hometown paper got confused about what my new last name was and misprinted it, so the whole thing went in again, corrected, the next week. I’m sure my high school classmates were wondering why I got two announcements.

3 - Formal china. Even if you don’t want formal china, even if you will never use it or take it out of the box, you must register for formal china. If not, the older ladies will call your mother and harass her until she gives them a pattern name. Belk holds seminars to educate brides-to-be on how many place settings, which serving pieces, coordinating holiday dishes, and suitable flatware and stemware to register for. One of my friends got married right after we graduated from high school, and she and her husband collected all of the fine china gifts from her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s friends (at her 10 bridal showers), and hauled all of it to Belk after the wedding to return it and buy a full set of their everyday dishes (and then some). You can’t fight it. We received our first place setting as a Christmas gift from my parents the year before we got married.

4 - Groom’s cake. Wasn’t this immortalized in Steel Magnolias? Train’s cake was actually served at the rehearsal dinner, and it was a motorcycle. I think.

5 - Gift tables. Mothers-of-the bride display their daughter’s engagement and shower gifts in their home so that visitors can survey the loot before the wedding. My mom arranged our gifts on several tables as they arrived at her house, plus framed engagement portraits, wedding favors, and copies of shower and tea invitations.

Even though we only got married 5 years ago, times have really changed. Back then the wedding “industry” was just getting started in utilizing the web and theknot.com to increase all the ways you could customize your ceremony and reception. Our reception was pretty standard based on all of the weddings I had been to as an adolescent in the early 90s: our cake had a champagne fountain; we had matchbooks as favors; I had a cascade bouquet and not one of those fancy schmancy gathered ones. My point is, I imagine as years go by brides pay less and less attention to these old-school “rules,” but it really added something special to my engagement and the planning of our wedding.

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