{"id":3869,"date":"2015-07-26T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-26T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=3869"},"modified":"2015-07-30T14:01:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T21:01:44","slug":"weddings-used-to-be-simpler-and-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/weddings-used-to-be-simpler-and-cheaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Weddings Used to Be Simpler … and Cheaper."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wedding<\/a>For the past few months I\u2019ve been reading Autumn Ashbough\u2019s blog, When West Dates East<\/a>, keeping up on all the details of her wedding preparations, and laughing my head off. Autumn is an excellent writer; plus, her life and her family supply lots of good material. Last week, perhaps feeling a little writer-ly jealousy of all the drama in her life, I commented that my wedding was nice \u2026 and also boring. I could sum it up one short post, I said. She’d already written dozens, and we still hadn’t arrived at the main event.<\/p>\n

Autumn\u2019s response: \u201cI would like to see the post from your wedding, Nicki. With pictures!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sooo \u2026 here goes.<\/p>\n

The year Eugene and I got married, 1967, was a simpler time. People said their vows (probably in a church), had a simple reception (probably in the church basement), and drove away for a simple honeymoon. (We drove to San Francisco.)<\/p>\n

Like many couples then and now our first impulse was to make the wedding small. But when we sat down to write a list, every name seemed to lead to two more names, people who couldn\u2019t possibly be excluded without hurting their feeling. I don\u2019t remember how many people we invited, but when we were done, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church was full.<\/p>\n

\"wedding,<\/a>Most of our wedding guests lived nearby. Eugene\u2019s brother and sister were the only people who arrived by plane. Eugene\u2019s parents, who lived in Singapore, wished us well but weren’t able to come halfway around the world for the wedding, so Eugene\u2019s boss, Sid McIntyre, offered to stand in for his father.<\/p>\n

\"wedding,<\/a>Despite the fact that Eugene was born in China and moved to town only five years earlier while I lived there most of my life, he contributed more names to our guest list than I did. Five years was more than enough time for an extrovert like him to make plenty of friends.<\/p>\n

Our wedding was typical for a Sedro-Woolley WA wedding. In 1967 no one had catered dinners and videographers, and certainly not a mountaintop wedding or a Hawaiian beach wedding. In fact, as far as I know, people didn\u2019t even plan fancy rehearsal dinners in those days.<\/p>\n

Beautiful wedding gowns, however, are timeless. I’ve always adored beautiful dresses. So I can’t explain why I didn’t go on a search for the most elegant wedding dress in the land. For some reason, though, I decided to make my own. In the 1960s, women knew how to sew. Even young women. We were required to take two years of cooking and sewing in Home Ec classes if we wanted to graduate from high school.<\/p>\n

I made my dress, but I didn’t make my veil. I used the old saying of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue<\/em> as an excuse, and borrowed one from a friend.<\/p>\n

\"wedding,<\/a>My maid-of-honor and bridesmaids also made their dresses. (Or maybe my mom made them. I can\u2019t remember.)<\/p>\n

\"wedding,<\/a>My mom and grandma (shown below) were the real seamstresses of the family. My sister (on our right) still carries on the tradition.<\/p>\n

\"wedding,<\/a>I see that I was wrong to say I could sum up my wedding in one short post. Come back next week and I’ll tell you more. In the meantime, check out Autumn’s blog<\/a> for a modern-day tale of wedding planning.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past few months I\u2019ve been reading Autumn Ashbough\u2019s blog, When West Dates East, keeping up on all the details of her wedding preparations, and laughing my head off. Autumn is an excellent writer; plus, her life and her family supply lots of good material. Last week, perhaps feeling a little writer-ly jealousy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,155],"tags":[872,875,878,873,874,876,540,877],"class_list":["post-3869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-family","tag-1960s-wedding","tag-bride-sews-her-own-wedding-dress","tag-bridesmaids-dresses","tag-catholic-wedding","tag-guest-list-for-wedding","tag-home-economics-classes","tag-immaculate-heart-of-mary-church","tag-something-old-something-new-something-borrowed-something-blue"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-10p","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3908,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/two-wedding-receptions-and-a-kidnapping\/","url_meta":{"origin":3869,"position":0},"title":"Two Wedding Receptions and a Kidnapping.","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"August 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The wedding went off without a hitch. The best man remembered to bring the rings, the flower girl and ring bearer were adorable, the soprano sang a beautiful rendition of Ave Maria, and the bridesmaids paraded gracefully up the aisle ahead of the bride. Even the groom, who appeared nervous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Culture","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wedding, cake 001","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/wedding-cake-001-e1437435655450.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5635,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/loving-the-movie-and-the-crime-of-interracial-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":3869,"position":1},"title":"“Loving,” the Movie, and the Crime of Interracial Love.","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"November 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 I had no idea. 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