I was lazy and kept hitting the snooze on my phone until, oh, ten minutes ago. That means your bleary eyed little blog writer is sitting at her computer now with a bit of mascara still smudged under eyelashes, having had seven or so hours of sleep after a surprise Thursday night gig in Printer's Alley for Matthew's band (who? what?!). I only have a minute to clack out a post before I have to go pick up my sister to hit the Friday morning estate sales, but these newspaper announcements for the wedding of one of Doris's sisters (remember, she has like five?) are too neat not to share!
In the forties' up through the seventies', it seems like people made a big deal about engagements and wedding announcements-- especially when you were a dead ringer for French siren Simone Signoret, and you lived in a small town like Columbia, Tennessee, I guess. I remember a full page clipping from The Tennessean's bridal announcement page for my aunt Donna, who also looked like a movie star. Here, SOMEONE at the newspaper not only put together all the details of the pre-wedding planning, but covered, exhaustively, what happened at the ceremony-- down to what the bride's mother wore and where the happy new couple was going on their honeymoon! You can read all about in the battered clippings below. Doris, by the way, is "Mrs. Harry Williams" at this pre- Ray point, and her best friend and sister Ruth is "Mrs. Robert Hunter". See! I told you there'd be some familiar people in this post!
One of the neatest things about reading old wedding clippings are the clothing descriptions on the women. At times, you'd practically have to be a dressmaker to understand some of the jargon (these columnists go hard or go home!) but this description is pretty easy to understand, minus the "shirred bertha": "The bride...wore a white organdie ballerina length dress fashioned with a shirred bertha, a fitted bodice, and a full skirt posed over hoops. Her chapel length veil fell from a white nylon cloche and she carried a white orchid showered with stephanotis, caught to a white Bible....[The maid of honor] wore lilac organdie and [the matron of honor] wore green organdie. Their dresses were styled similarly to the bride's." Click on the picture above and read about all the other clothes worn before, during, and after the wedding, as well as the SERIES of "pre-nuptial" parties held in honor of the couple! They must have been a popular pair.
Here, you can see the original invitation, a blurry clipping of the dress and bride and groom described above, a (age stained, but still adorable) napkin from their recepetion. TOO. CUTE.
Do you have any clippings like this from your parents' or your grandparents' weddings? Do you kind of wish you would have more to show for your twenty-first century wedding than a DVR or a Facebook album of pictures? I want newspaper coverage, daddurn it! How do you like Carol Mae's dress?
Gotta run...see you guys on Monday! Wish me luck at the sales!
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