My younger sister is getting married today. She and her fiance have been engaged for fifteen years, and they sold their current house and are buying a new house and their lawyer convinced them to get married prior to buying so both names are on the deed to the new house. So basically, societal convention and fifteen years of my mother and father of haranguing them to get married accomplished nothing, but a lawyer and tax law made them say to hell with it. My mother referred to their previous near two decade cohabitation as “living together without the benefit of clergy,” which I thought was clever.
Devon and her husband drove up to be there for the ceremony, but mom and dad and Seth and I are not going because it was so last minute. They are having the actual ceremony in their living room, and mom and dad will view the marriage via facetime. I’ll be watching WVU. Right now they are doing the nail salon/getting the hair did thing.
I guess my only real remark is that Chad, Anne’s soon to be husband, had over fifteen years to think this through and still came up with the wrong answer and for reasons that escape me wants to become part of this family. He’s a nice guy and I get along with him, so I’m not really sure what is wrong with him. Anne seems to like him ok, too, and he’s done a good job putting up with her, so I guess it was meant to be.
At any rate, Happy Wedding Day, Annie (and you know I am just teasing you with this post).
Love,
your big brother
BGinCHI
Happy Day, Cole family!
Mrs. BG and I used to always say that getting married was easy, buying a condo was hard.
For one you get a party and everyone takes your picture, and for the other you sign a hundred documents and constantly feel like throwing up.
TaMara (HFG)
My type of wedding! Congrats.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Congrats to all involved.
Emma
John, dear, it is not kind NOR SAFE to tease a bride on her wedding day, fifteen years or not. Congrats to Anne and Chad!
Mary G
Glad they’re not rushing into it.
Tax law is a much bigger motivator than societal convention or mom and dad nagging. Just kidding. Congratulations, Annie and Chad!
HRA
Congratulations to Annie and Chad!
I am all for their kind of wedding. Unfortunately, that does not work for my family. A granddaughter is getting married on New Years Eve at a hotel that was converted from a psych center downtown. The theme is the 1920s. :)
dmsilev
I would hassle you about not attending your sister’s wedding, even by video, except that I did the same thing when my brother got married. That was also short notice (for one shining moment, I got to tell people “I found out yesterday that my brother is getting married tomorrow”) and I was living several hundred miles away at the time so couldn’t do it.
Present at the ceremony were my brother and sister-in-law, my parents, the Justice of the Peace, my parents’ dog, and the Justice’s cat.
Skepticat
Sounds eminently sensible to me. i wish them the best.
FlyingToaster
Similar to my wedding. We booked the Justice of the Peace for the last available day before same-sex marriage came into force, because I was on HerrDoktor’s insurance as “domestic partner”, which would go away since everyone could just get married already. Got married in my living room with our best friends, their son (our god(less)son) and the couple who introduced us. Then we went to Mary’s for Dim Sum.
We actually managed to freak out everyone in both extended families; they’d all assumed we had no interest in getting married. We just didn’t have any financial reason to do so, until we did.
Yutsano
@FlyingToaster: My parents were married by a justice of the peace the weekend before my dad left for boot camp for the Navy. They’re still hitched 49+ years now. My brothers and I really need to get on doing something big for their 50th. Just don’t know what yet.
Quaker in a Basement
Mazel tov, ya’ll.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Get them a cake. They’ve seen everything else, they lasted 50 yrs, really the only thing is to eat. Cake. If they have good senses of humor, get them a wedding cake that says Happy 50th.
Terry chay
Congrats!
OT but check out the #GOPVotingBlue hashtag on twitter. Good stuff.
Yutsano
Also: because edit isn’t working (FYWP)
MAZEL TOV!!!
Terry chay
https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/GOPVotingBlue
NotMax
15 years of hanging, Chad.
;)
@HRA
Bathtub gin and chop suey?
:)
Brachiator
Congratulations!
schrodingers_cat
Congrats to your sister and her husband to be.
Here is PC getting married to Shahid Kapoor in Kaminey (Rascals)
Raat ke dhai bhaje (Its 2.30 at night)
My wedding was small too. In a friend’s house with two witnesses (my friend and her husband) and I was married by a woman .
Gelfling 545
Best wishes to the newly married. May marriage not change a thing!
A lot of weddings going around. Last week I went to a small gathering for my neighbor’s daughter. Both parties were in their late 30s and had known each other from high school. They went to a judge, then her mom cooked curried chicken and red beans and rice and invited the neighbors in. Lots of laughing and no stress.
My daughter has been with her gentleman for 10 years and I generally refer to him as my son in law-lite. They’re going to marry in July. They were both married before which left some trauma and I certainly never pressured them, not being a great believer in marriage myself but for similar reasons – the desire to not have unnecessary legal and/or tax complications – they will marry at his sister’s rural (nearly wilderness) property and serve tacos and cake. There will be music because every second person they know is a musician. And there will be a cloud of witness because they, too, have known each other from high school and their social histories ran parallel for a long time. Fancy dresses because she has a daughter and he has 2 and they demand it. There will also be llamas.
CaseyL
Congratulations to the “Oh Hell We’re Finally Doing This” couple!
And congrats on the new house, too! Is that also in the same neighborhood as you and your parents?
…maybe they can have a shower afterwards, when they move into the new place and figure out what homewares they don’t already have.
Brachiator
BTW, this reminds me that the UK recently took steps to allow civil partnerships for everyone (they already have gay marriage)
Crazy little things called love.
Anne Laurie
It was fifteen years for me & the not-yet-Spousal Unit, too. But we’d already bought the house together, and we figured if the relationship could survive *that*, we might as well streamline our health-insurance plans. Also, SU’s dad wanted it badly enough to offer to pay for the whole thing, and we owed all our friends at least one good party.
That was twenty-five years ago, as of August, if your Anne wants to consider it a good omen.
Incidentally, each of us had a ‘problematic’ brother that didn’t get an invitation. SU’s showed up, mine didn’t. Not saying that Anne *wouldn’t* have invited you, Cole, but…
joel hanes
@Yutsano:
doing something big for their 50th
best thing you can do is to tell them that you learned to be a good person by watching them
Barbara
Best wishes for a happy day and an even happier life.
pk
I know a dad who spent $300,000 dollars on a splashy Indian wedding (a huge production if I ever saw one). Couple divorced two years later. He’d have been better off buying the daughter a nice house with that amount.
I think your sister’s way is the best.
Yutsano
@joel hanes: We actually tell them that all the time. When I’m with my little brother somewhere (he’s 6’4, I’m 5’9, but I’m 5 years older) we’re rather amazed at how people act in public because they weren’t raised any better. And we make it a point to tell my parents that too.
@Ruckus: I could get them cupcakes from this kicking local bake shop especially since they have the faves for both of them. I might just have to do this! Thanks!
CaseyL
@Yutsano: For my grandparents’ 50th, my Mom and Aunt asked everyone in the family to contribute their favorite memory of the couple. They collected all the stories (which were written down, this being in the days before email) and put them in a fancy binder, and presented the volume at the party. It was a wonderful thing. I think/hope my Aunt or Mom has that book now that Nanny and Pop-Pop are gone.
HRA
@NotMax:
There has been nothing said about the drinks. The food will be located in stations around the ballroom floor.
Aleta
I started out younger at most everything
All the riches and pleasures, what else could life bring?
But it makes me feel better each time it begins
Callin’ me home, hickory wind
It’s hard way to find out that trouble is real
In a far away city, with a far away feel
But it makes me feel better each time it begins
Callin’ me home, hickory wind
Keeps callin’ me home, hickory wind
NotMax
@HRA
For fun, a selection of 1920s sandwiches. Not a decade renowned for its cuisine.
;)
Robert Sneddon
@Yutsano:
Enlist?
Robert Sneddon
@pk: I caught a TV program a while back, a documentary about wealthy families — not celebrities, just folks who had money from working, education etc. A couple from two such families getting married were offered the choice by their parents of a big splashy wedding or a house, same cost. They chose the big splashy wedding (and honeymoon) for rational reasons. They were young, both in good jobs (six-figure annual salaries with bonuses) and they reasoned they were only going to get married once, as far as they could foresee. A house as a wedding present would tie them down to a specific location and they’d easily be able to afford their choice of property from their own earnings and be more sanguine about selling up and moving if circumstances changed. It was logical given their situation but it would make the average punter scraping by day to day scratch their head in wonder.
A Ghost To Most
Does not compute
Congrats!
rikyrah
Awe ??????
geg6
Congrats to Annie and Chad! Much happiness to them!
Oh yeah…they are very sensible. A very good sign.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
I was thinking 3 level wedding cake with bride and groom. So I looked for images and came across this – For the long and winding road of 50 yrs.
Even better.
Brachiator
@Robert Sneddon:
In some ways, it’s a wash. If the couple already have big money, it doesn’t much matter what choice they make.
One of the purposes of weddings in some places was to provide the couple with some of the goods and resources they would need to maintain a household. And the presumption was also that they would live in the community.
I’m told that back in the day, when the children of WASP plutocrats in Los Angeles got married, they would be given a home in the Hancock Park area, and a one year subscription to the LA Times.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: That’s lovely.
SoupCatcher
@NotMax:
Caesar Salad holding for you on line one.
Daniel'sBob
@Aleta: Greetings, Gram fan. One of my favorites.
TomatoQueen
Mazel Tov!
Bonnie
That West Virginia game was a great game!
Honus
I’m a tax lawyer. Admitted in West Virginia. They didn’t have to get married. But I’m glad they did. It was a nice day for it.
J R in WV
Woot ~!!!~
What a game, down to the wire, scoring a touchdown to go down by one, going for a 2 point conversion, doing it over and over, thanks to the zebras. Won the game with seconds to go, TX playing a rugby play to lose at the end. Coach was over the top with happy to be beating Texas at their home stadium with a record breaking crowd in attendence.
No one left that game early !!!
Let’s go Mountaineers !!
And congratulations to the happy couple who missed a great game!
My father was well accustomed to cursing at the referees when he felt they were unfair to the Gold and Blue Mountaineers. He would be overcome with joy to have seen this game.
Not long after Dad died WV beat Oklahoma by a ton of points, and I cried to think how happy he would be to see his boys beat a highly ranked OK team like a drum. Almost like that tonight.
Be happy John Cole, we won by beating both Texas and the Referees. As usual, WV had to beat them both!
Honus
Maybe holgorsen can get a decent haircut now.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
My grandmother referred to unmarried cohabitation as light housekeeping.
Best wishes to the happy couple!
NotMax
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
We used to call them checkmates.
J R in WV
@Honus:
What he really needs is a wide-brimmed hat to keep from getting melanoma skin cancer on his ears or head. Both my dad and his dad, my granddad were sun worshipers, they worked at a desk indoors, but loved to be in the sun as much as possible. They both had melanomas removed, successfully. His nearly beard, he needs to either go for the beard or start shaving more regularly. He seems like a good guy.
I hate the sun, and work in the shade when I work outdoors as much as I can.
What a football game! Great action, great play, both teams played well, our guys stood up until the end and won with seconds to go on a two point conversion. Let’s Go, Mountaineers!!!
Honus
@J R in WV: I love you brother. Where are you? I always kind of picture you on 250 east of Elkins, out toward Huttonsville.
Drunkenhausfrau
Why I come here. All these years.
satby
Congratulations and all the best wishes to Annie and Chad!
VeniceRiley
Congrats Annie!
My sister is like that too, Cole. 15-20 years … only they’ve bought the new house & she rents out her old one. No idea why they don’t get married. They promised my dad. He died. I guess there’s really no hurry after that.
Quaker in a Basement
Turns out choosing WV vs Texas over the wedding was the right call. That game was awesome!
Infamous Heel-Filcher
The “without benefit of clergy” line is really old actually (though obviously it used to be said with more venom than I imagine your mom puts behind it).