Nice Day for a Black Wedding

According to the stacks of glossy mags I purchased just after accepting my boyfriend G’s proposal, planning a wedding is fun. Picking out the right font and wording for the stacks of papers that you have to send out is enjoyment. Discovering how deep into debt you will go for a party is a blast. Fighting with your husband to be, parents and future in-laws over catering and venues is pure pleasure. Having no one actually assist or even want to assist you in any way is bliss. Under the spell of theknot.com, I attended a wedding expo[1] at a leading Manhattan department store. G and I went for the free booze and favors and ended up giving our name, address and emails to every sales rep who pulled us a cold one. Wedding professionals are like funeral industry pros, they have one chance to put the emotional squeeze on you to get your money, and squeeze they do. They labor to convince you that something very simple needs to be very complicated in order to be truly special and that you should pay them for the complications. I arrived excited trying to cast off negative the negative association I had developed for weddings, but left feeling confused and frankly a little anti the whole thing. The power of the bridal myth and accompanying cult industry, while awesome and seemingly inescapable, are no match for my matrimonial memories.

Despite daily inundation by Disney and Mattel Barbie/princess fantasy propaganda, I never dreamed of my wedding day. I got clued in pretty early to the hoax that someday a prince would come. Perhaps it was the fact of living with a single mom whose prince had come in the form of a stable government job with benefits. Or maybe it was because I could sense the unhappiness and disappointment in the married couples around me. I thought about how those one time wannabe princesses had been duped. They may have been waiting for a prince to gallop up on a white steed and take them away from their life but all they got was a low wage earner who showed up in a beat up Charger knocked them up and then slept with their sister. I tried to imagine how quickly fantasy turned to nightmare when reality crept in. At relatives’ homes, I don’t remember ever being shown a wedding album or even having seen their wedding pictures on display. It was as if everyone had just unceremoniously shacked up due to boredom and low expectations or more likely an unplanned pregnancy. I can’t recall ever being pulled aside to hear about a wedding or to be asked about my big day still decades in the future.

During what would now be referred to as my Tween years, I attended plenty of weddings[2] with either my fat spinster cousin who I hate (I have to add the phrase for my sanity) or my mother. I guess I was their date. In large, I found the weddings to be poor cousins to the soap opera spectacle weddings and pictures of wedding that I had seen in national newspapers and other periodicals. The dresses were always a horrid princess style and seemed incredibly out of place in the mediocre churches in which the ceremonies were held. I could not fathom choosing a place because of emotional attachment instead aesthetics. The bridesmaids’ outfits seemed either a cruel joke or the bride’s calculated attempt to look even more beautiful if only by comparison. Lacking climate control and packed with people, the air in the church was always stifling. Bouquets and boutonnières wilted and guests sweated under the polyester blends in which they had dressed to impress.

After the ceremony the crowd rushed to the local fire department, the only place in town that black people used for large functions. I can only assume that the areas many private clubs and restaurant were either restricted[3] or too expensive. I always wanted to get there early for the swag. I observed from my mother that the wedding tchotchke is an important keepsake and I made the collection of napkins, matchbooks, ribbons, Jordan almond boxes and other imprinted paper products a serious purpose. I later observed from her that while every conceivable item was an important keepsake none were important enough to be kept safe from elemental decay. Every memento ended up like my boarding school diploma, school photos or christening dress; crinkled, yellowing with decay and losing the fight against rising damp in a dank hall closet. The color coordinated favors, waxed backed paper table cloths and faux flowers decorating the hall made it seem a bit more like a reception venue. These careful placed decorations obscured the trophies, historical prints and departmental photos that let you know you were in a historical museum of the volunteer fire brigade. Minus these distractions, one may have noticed that the faces in the group photos of the county’s bravest volunteers were the same faces of those who hid their true feelings about us behind white conical hats and had probably set as many blazes as they discriminatorily put out.

Meals were always an unremarkable variation on what a congregation would serve to a visiting church choir after a rousing performance: macaroni and cheese, greens, various mayonnaise based salads, some unhealthy form of chicken or sliced meat, mashed potatoes and a dizzying amount of soft sweet rolls. Alcohol was never served because of the location, an irony considering the makeup, constitution and ethnicity of the firefighters. I was sure that alcohol was served when one of their own had a reception there. The wedding receptions never
featured silverware, glass or ceramic plates and the use of Chinette would have been a welcome addition. Because the food was oily, I often had to double and triple up on the flimsy paper plates we were given and hope for the best. Napkins were of a correspondingly low quality and seemed to chase liquid spills and oily seepage away rather than absorb it.

Rarely was there a party after the meal, everyone just went to their respective homes or to work to dish the events to those who had not been in attendance, if they could find anyone in that category. I went home to compare the papers and favors I had collected with others in my collection. Then I either put them away in a drawer to take up space or displayed them on my shelf to collect dust. The more weddings I attended the more the events failed to leave an impression on me. As far as I was concerned I had gotten as close to the wedding experience as I imaged I would ever want to. But all that was before I was invited to be a junior bridesmaid in a wedding, which is an entirely different story.

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[1] Expo is a synonym for battery soft selling

[2] I should mention that I never really knew the bride and groom. They were often cousins several times removed or simply members of the congregation at the church I was forced to attend. Weddings were a community event and I kept as close to myself as possible which explains my detachment.

[3] No blacks, no Jews and only well established Irish