Today is my parents’ 48th wedding anniversary.
BarbaraB and GeorgeB got married in 1965 at a place called Leonard’s on Long Island. It’s still there.
After the wedding, my mother cut the sleeves off her wedding dress and wore it to someone else’s wedding. “It was a minor trend to wear white to weddings,” she says.
When my sister and I were little, Mom let us play with her wedding veil but she had the dress stored away. When we took it out before I got married in 2001, we found that mildew had gotten into it, leaving rusty-colored stains at about knee-level in the back.
Alas!
I wound up wearing Richard Tyler dress with a sleek silhouette that is slightly reminiscent of BarbaraB’s dress.
My wedding in 2001. Click for more photos.
As I’ve mentioned a number of times, my parents are selling my childhood home in New Jersey. I’m not sad about it. I hated living in New Jersey. (Despite that, my “first dance” wedding song was Bruce Springsteen’s cover of “Jersey Girl,” because it struck me as funny.) I’ve been collecting/receiving old stuff from the Jersey house. This month, my mother gave me the damaged wedding gown. She knows I wear a lot of vintage clothes and thought I might be able to do something to make it un-wedding-y. The damaged part is certainly low enough to be cut off, but it’s hard to take the wedding out of a wedding gown. I haven’t managed to do anything with my own wedding gown, which I tried on for size for my tenth anniversary in 2011.
Phew! It still fit.
I tried BarbaraB’s dress on today.
It’s a little big up top.
Jean of Ghost Tailor could easily take it in a little and hem it — the question is whether it could be dyed and de-wedding-ized. Maybe one day I’ll get creative and explore the options.
Meanwhile, let’s drink an anniversary toast to BarbaraB and GeorgeB!
When I was little, I thought this “Champagne glass” photo in the wedding album was ultra-glamorous.
Did you know that at a wedding, etiquette calls for you to say “congratulations” to the groom, but “best wishes” to the bride? That’s because the man has gotten lucky and snagged an awesome ladyperson, so congrats are in order. Meanwhile, a woman is permanently attaching herself to someone who is going to do things like belch loudly and then exclaim, “Ooh, that was a good one!” The reasonable reaction to any woman’s decision to do such a thing is to say, “Um … yeah … good luck with that. LOL!” but we rephrase that as “best wishes” to make it sound a little nicer.
I’m not sure if there’s a similar rule for anniversaries but there should be. So I’ll say, “Congratulations, Dad!” And, let’s see … “Thanks for having a good sense of humor, Mom!”
“American Gothic” — summer 2013. Click for original post.
I love this post. Your parents look adorable and I love your wedding snaps. Can’t wait to see what you will do to the dress. I know zilch about New Jersey ‘kept what I saw on tv on the Sopranos. What’s so bad about it? Is it boring? I’ve been to Jersey in the Channel Islands- lots of people think it’s a bit boring….x
It was boring, so so so boring.
Congratulations, Barbara and George! Wendy, you look so much like your mom when she was younger!
🙂
Best e-card ever!
GeorgeB
<3
Happy happy anniversary Grandrapsta & Baba!
Gorgeous couple!!! You look beauteous as well on your wedding day!
LOL, we should have made the grandkids say “grandrapsta.”
I’m visiting my parents right now and they grew up in NYC (Queens) and got married there in 1968. Just asked them if they’d ever heard of Leonard’s and they were all: “We went to at least 10 weddings there.” My mother said her fave at that venue was one that started at midnight.
They’re still arguing about the weddings they went to at Leonard’s – discussing which was the best, which was the worst. Which had the best food.
Wow, what mileage we’re getting from your family’s happy occasion 🙂
Dying! Send your comment to my parents.
They have a story about my dad saying, “I’ll get married any place BUT Leonard’s.” And then, of course, Leonard’s…
We clicked on the link to the modern-day Leonard’s and my parents were all “OMG, it looks exactly the same.” “That chandelier was all the rage.” “You had to be careful not to kill yourself when you came down the stairs – and the bride always came down the stairs to make a huge entrance.” Hilarious!
I think we do have a stair photo of mom — I have to ask my sister, she’s got the album right now!
Wow, the family resemblance is so strong between you and your mother! Gorgeous family, indeed.
BTW, my niece loved her emoji stud earrings. She lives in California and is attending UCLA, but most of her family lives on Long Island. So she got a kick out of the earrings being from a “major NYC designer” 🙂
Oh, tell her to send me a pic!
She texted me a photo, and I tweeted it with your username so you would see it. Gotta love the fine, smooth skin of an 18-year old’s cheek!
Loved seeing that!