What possessed us to throw a wedding in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in January?
Weather histories for that year are available online. For January 1978 the average daily temperature in Milwaukee was 9 degrees. Once, for three days in a row after we married, the thermometer never rose above zero. On the fourth day, when the temperature hit 14 degrees, I walked to a nearby pharmacy to collect some pictures from the wedding. The guy in line ahead of me said to the cashier, “Hey, it feels like spring out there today!” and I finally understood how people that far north adapted to cold weather. Because he was right: it did feel like spring out there.
Weather histories for that year are available online. For January 1978 the average daily temperature in Milwaukee was 9 degrees. Once, for three days in a row after we married, the thermometer never rose above zero. On the fourth day, when the temperature hit 14 degrees, I walked to a nearby pharmacy to collect some pictures from the wedding. The guy in line ahead of me said to the cashier, “Hey, it feels like spring out there today!” and I finally understood how people that far north adapted to cold weather. Because he was right: it did feel like spring out there.
Then came the snow. The night of the wedding, my mother, her husband, my aunt and uncle, and various siblings left the reception early, hopped into Uncle Russ’s motor home, and left Milwaukee to stay ahead of the winter storm rolling toward the city.
Otherwise, everything came off without a hitch. At least, in terms of the weather.
Because in regard to weddings, nearly all brides and grooms encounter hitches. (I mean, what else is that but the double entendre in “getting hitched?”) Here I’ll list just three incidents from my wedding to Kris:
*The week before we married, I stayed with the Gillets in Kris’s sister’s bedroom. The room was so cold I could see my breath. After playing Captain Scott for three hours, I pulled a lump of blankets from the bed and slept in the somewhat warmer hallway. Kris’s sisters are as sweet as they come, but they found my move to gentler climes hilarious. Ever since, I wondered whether I was being tested and, if so, whether I had passed or failed.
*Kris, her mother, and I—yes, that’s right, I was an utter fool—drove to the bridal shop for the final fitting of her dress. The dress looked beautiful on her, but there was a sticking point: Kris refused the veil. “I don’t want to wear anything on my head.”
“You have to wear a veil.”
“I don’t like veils.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
This exchange continued for a few minutes, growing sharper with each remark. At one point, the sales clerk stepped in with this advice: “Well, dear, if you don’t wear a veil, how will anyone know you’re the bride?”
This dialogue came to an abrupt end when Kris’s mom fled the shop in tears of frustration. She headed one way around the block, and following her through the doorway, we headed in the other direction. Needless to say, that icy wind cut through this Southern boy like a scalpel. When we met Kris’s mom and conversed a bit more—I seem to remember acting as negotiator—we returned to the bridal shop in a subdued mood, no doubt encouraged toward reconciliation by tears turning to icicles. A truce was declared, a peace treaty signed, and Kris wore a garland of flowers and lace in her hair.
*Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was nobody’s uncle, at least nobody in attendance at the wedding, but when Kris was growing up, this man lived across the street and demanded the neighborhood kids call him Uncle Bill.
By around eight o’clock, Uncle Bill had stepped to the bar once too often. This intoxication led to a couple incidents. Once that evening, in the men’s room of Alioto’s, a fine restaurant Kris’s parents had chosen for the reception, Uncle Bill entered as I was leaving, took his place at the urinal, and from that position tried to persuade me to join the Marine Corps. “I was a Marine,” he kept saying. “I know some people. I could get you in.”
“I’m really don’t think I want to join the Marines.”
“I’m telling you, I could call some people. Put in a good word.”
He was a friend of the family, so I refrained from answering him. Had I wished to join the Marines, however, I am reasonably certain I could have done without Uncle Bill’s recommendation.
About an hour later, Uncle Bill insisted on taking a picture of Kris, me, and her parents. Just before the camera flash, he bellowed, “Smile! Your daughter’s pregnant!” (Untrue, for the curious among you).
The next morning, as I was loading our bags from the hotel into the car, I saw Uncle Bill emerge from his room. He appeared, to put it mildly, keelhauled by the previous evening.
We ran over other nails on the road to marriage, but we were eventually pronounced man and wife, as the rings and the wedding goblets in the photo attest.
Now, several of my former students and two of my nieces are getting married in the next four or five months. Here are six pointers. Take them as you will.
Dating and courtship are a time for romance: chocolates, dining out, roses, the first kiss. Weddings are a time for gathering friends and family in celebration, along with the glitches and hitches.
Marriage is another creature altogether. Leo Tolstoy opens his novel Anna Karenina with this famous line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same might be said of marriage, though, mistrusting the idea of happiness, I would substitute the word flourishing. Along with a dash of romance and the ability to face glitches and hitches, flourishing marriages are about commitment, respect, shared visions of faith and virtues, patience, humor, and a lively sense of the absurd.
In the same novel, Tolstoy also wrote: “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” Wise words for marriage and for life.
Otherwise, everything came off without a hitch. At least, in terms of the weather.
Because in regard to weddings, nearly all brides and grooms encounter hitches. (I mean, what else is that but the double entendre in “getting hitched?”) Here I’ll list just three incidents from my wedding to Kris:
*The week before we married, I stayed with the Gillets in Kris’s sister’s bedroom. The room was so cold I could see my breath. After playing Captain Scott for three hours, I pulled a lump of blankets from the bed and slept in the somewhat warmer hallway. Kris’s sisters are as sweet as they come, but they found my move to gentler climes hilarious. Ever since, I wondered whether I was being tested and, if so, whether I had passed or failed.
*Kris, her mother, and I—yes, that’s right, I was an utter fool—drove to the bridal shop for the final fitting of her dress. The dress looked beautiful on her, but there was a sticking point: Kris refused the veil. “I don’t want to wear anything on my head.”
“You have to wear a veil.”
“I don’t like veils.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
This exchange continued for a few minutes, growing sharper with each remark. At one point, the sales clerk stepped in with this advice: “Well, dear, if you don’t wear a veil, how will anyone know you’re the bride?”
This dialogue came to an abrupt end when Kris’s mom fled the shop in tears of frustration. She headed one way around the block, and following her through the doorway, we headed in the other direction. Needless to say, that icy wind cut through this Southern boy like a scalpel. When we met Kris’s mom and conversed a bit more—I seem to remember acting as negotiator—we returned to the bridal shop in a subdued mood, no doubt encouraged toward reconciliation by tears turning to icicles. A truce was declared, a peace treaty signed, and Kris wore a garland of flowers and lace in her hair.
*Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was nobody’s uncle, at least nobody in attendance at the wedding, but when Kris was growing up, this man lived across the street and demanded the neighborhood kids call him Uncle Bill.
By around eight o’clock, Uncle Bill had stepped to the bar once too often. This intoxication led to a couple incidents. Once that evening, in the men’s room of Alioto’s, a fine restaurant Kris’s parents had chosen for the reception, Uncle Bill entered as I was leaving, took his place at the urinal, and from that position tried to persuade me to join the Marine Corps. “I was a Marine,” he kept saying. “I know some people. I could get you in.”
“I’m really don’t think I want to join the Marines.”
“I’m telling you, I could call some people. Put in a good word.”
He was a friend of the family, so I refrained from answering him. Had I wished to join the Marines, however, I am reasonably certain I could have done without Uncle Bill’s recommendation.
About an hour later, Uncle Bill insisted on taking a picture of Kris, me, and her parents. Just before the camera flash, he bellowed, “Smile! Your daughter’s pregnant!” (Untrue, for the curious among you).
The next morning, as I was loading our bags from the hotel into the car, I saw Uncle Bill emerge from his room. He appeared, to put it mildly, keelhauled by the previous evening.
We ran over other nails on the road to marriage, but we were eventually pronounced man and wife, as the rings and the wedding goblets in the photo attest.
Now, several of my former students and two of my nieces are getting married in the next four or five months. Here are six pointers. Take them as you will.
- Don’t suffer under the delusion that this wedding belongs to you. You’ll be much happier if you discard that thought at once. Look at yourselves instead as the principal actors in a Hollywood film. You’re the stars of the movie, but you’re surrounded by directors, a make-up crew, costume designers, script-writers, musicians, supporting actors in the form of groomsmen and bride’s maids, and an audience. Let everyone else plan the thing and suffer accordingly. You should just try to have some fun.
- Give an ear to the advice of your parents. There’s a reason to do so. Most of them have exchanged vows at a wedding.
- Avoid deep-throated kisses at the altar. Only voyeurs and Uncle Bill want to see this. Avoid a peck on the cheeks; you’ll look like brother and sister. What is wanted is a moderately long, lip-to-lip kiss. If necessary, practice.
- Men: under no circumstances should you accompany your prospective mother-in-law and soon-to-be wife to a bridal shop. If pushed to do so, explain that in your tradition such an excursion is considered unlucky. Believe me, you’ll be telling the truth. In fact, I would recommend staying out of the entire wedding picture as much as possible. Better safe than sorry.
- If you’re going to schedule a wedding in January in places like Maine, Western New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other refrigerated states, deck yourself out in thermal underwear. Advise your guests to do the same. The bride and her maids are, I regret to say, condemned to shivering.
- Plenty of weddings include an Uncle Bill. But remember this: it’s the tumbles and stumbles, the glitches and hitches that provide the stories and make for laughter on your twenty-fifth anniversary. No one remembers a bland wedding.
Dating and courtship are a time for romance: chocolates, dining out, roses, the first kiss. Weddings are a time for gathering friends and family in celebration, along with the glitches and hitches.
Marriage is another creature altogether. Leo Tolstoy opens his novel Anna Karenina with this famous line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same might be said of marriage, though, mistrusting the idea of happiness, I would substitute the word flourishing. Along with a dash of romance and the ability to face glitches and hitches, flourishing marriages are about commitment, respect, shared visions of faith and virtues, patience, humor, and a lively sense of the absurd.
In the same novel, Tolstoy also wrote: “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” Wise words for marriage and for life.