June, the traditional wedding month, always brings a few more anniversary announcements and "happy ads" congratulating couples celebrating milestone years of married life. When you're looking at 10 or 15 years of marriage, those fifty-year celebrations seem far away, but before you know it, half a century has been spent together. 1960 seems to have seen a bumper crop of weddings.
After reading Rosie Schluter's column last week, talking about celebrating 50 years of marriage, I just had to view the video of the Schluter's wedding, reception and after party. Rosie mentioned that it made her cry to see all the people who were no longer living. I didn't know a soul there except Rosie and Paul, and it made me get a little teary! Weddings always prime the waterworks pump for me.
The Schluters home movies, transferred to a DVD and then to the Beacon website are beautiful. They picture a time when ladies always wore hats and white gloves to weddings . . . when a piece of cake, nuts, mints and a cup of coffee offered by second-tier friends (don't take the saucer, please) were adequate fare for an evening reception . . . when the bride's garter was modestly placed below her knee, not up there in mini-skirt territory.
Rosie was a beautiful bride, and Paul, a handsome groom with wavy blonde hair and horn-rimmed glasses. The bridesmaids matched in powder blue dresses with big skirts, picture hats perched on their fresh-from-the-beauty-shop dos.
Once the formal reception in the church basement ended, the real party began in the basement of the bride's parent's home. Crepe paper streamers looped around steam pipes and a man wearing a white shirt and skinny black tie was busy tending bar. Everyone was having a grand time.
Rosie danced a frisky polka with her father, layers of tulle flying out behind her on the small dance floor. She also twirled around the room with several other older men - uncles probably - always with the same sweet, restrained smile on her face. There are no shots of Paul dancing with the older ladies.
The bride and groom departed for their honeymoon and married life in a cool tri-tone green Ford, anxious to meet whatever life had in store for them. Rosie was still displaying the Mona Lisa smile as she tossed her purse into the back seat.
Thanks for sharing this film with us, Schluters! If you haven't seen the video and have access to the internet and the Beacon web site, (www.cannonfalls.com) check it out. It's a time capsule - a beautiful reminder of how happy we are at wedding celebrations.
Congratulations to all you brides and grooms celebrating special anniversaries this summer. You've hung in there for a memorable number of years, and deserve to at least pat yourselves on the back for making a go of it. Bending your life to match up with another is no small task. One of my favorite quotes about marriage came from Marie Barron, TV mom on the show, "Everybody Loves Raymond." It went something like this, "Don't split up, put your head down and keep on fighting!"
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