I had a notion to devote an entire essay to those days, but I realized soon after the idea formed that my memories are too patchy. And uncharacteristically, I'm not sure I saved much memorabilia. Just as well, I think. Thanks for the comment, Stephanie.
Thank you for sharing your lovely voice and your memories. I do remember the T&C wedding photos. Though I never married and therefore never made it to those pages, I eagerly read my horoscope each month hoping for the best.
I always heard the birth announcements, wedding announcements, and obituaries referred to as the hatched, latched, and snatched section of the newspaper, which pretty much sums up life’s progression.
I love your words, observations, but especially your memories....I am so privileged to have been standing not to far away from that beautiful "cake-cutting newlywed couple. .. I find myself laughing out loud often when reading the reviews of the "great wedding event.." Recently I posted a quote on FB that tells me all I need to know when I am officiating or reading about a wedding... Obviously it's more than a newsworthy event... And obviously it's a life-changing event... In Hugo's Les Miserables... I discovered the thread that holds the matrimonial moment and life as a couple together.... It is in the quote... "When you look at someone you love, you look into the eyes of God.".. I guess it's fun to read about the car the couple road in.. or how they were dressed.. or what songs were sung... or where they gathered for refreshments.... But to remember a vision of God across from you for a fleeting moment ..makes the day special....makes it the best event for page 28...
It was one of my life's truest honors to have you there, Barry, trusting even then that we'd somehow still be sharing our connections now. So grateful.
Glad to bring a in a little sunshine somehow -- it sure has been gray. Tradition would suggest there was at least some curtsying in the midst of it all, but I don't remember a one. We can practice together! Thanks, Janet.
How wonderful, Jill! That must have been beautiful (and I trust someone captured a photo). Happy the two of you found each other when you did. Love that love!
Wonderful. Happy sigh. I chuckled at your satirical wedding. Back in those days, it was plausible that such a wedding might take place. It seems far less likely these days. Unfortunately.
Which shows my take on things. Dad always joked to my sister that she should elope (to save him the money. The bride’s parents always paid for the wedding in those days). He never dared say it to me, knowing that I would much prefer the simplicity of elopement than the OTT of an actual wedding. Shudder.
And she ended up marrying with a dress looking surprisingly like yours despite it being 1975, and I stayed very happily single.
Life’s a funny thing. I’m so glad your marriage has been worth it. You make such a beautiful couple now. Faded hair suits a lot of us very well. I was never happy with the extreme vividness of my youth. I feel I’ve finally grown into myself. Bliss in my mid-60s.
Sending heaps of hugs dear Elizabeth. Wishing you decades more of marital bliss. 🤗🤗
I love that you stayed very happily single. We’re so often handed one narrative about what a life should look like, and it takes real self-knowledge to step into something different.
Your line about finally growing into yourself in your mid-60s — yes. That feels truer to me than anything about dresses or magazine features. Youth can be so loud and clumsy. The softer tones we settle into later feel much less volatile.
I’m touched by your generosity and also want to acknowledge that a life well-lived is measured in grounded contentment more than anything, that sense of having arrived in your own skin.
Sending hugs right back. May bliss in all its forms continue to emerge and deepen. 🤍
Happy early anniversary! It is always inspiring when people stick together -- and that you had a T&C moment in the spotlight with 29 others is just icing on that carrot cake. Stalking the woman from the old writeup to see how things turned out... too funny.
Aw, thanks, Amy. The buttercream icing on a carrot cake is part of why I love it so much, so that's a particularly well-suited adage here. I do wonder when curiosity crossed over into stalking. My mother once said, "I'm not nosey. I'm just detail oriented when it comes to other people's business." Apples fall near their trees...right? 😅
That was a warm, fun read, Elizabeth. And I had to enlarge and read the whole Amalfi coast story. I like being curious about other people's circumstances and fortunes, imagining what it must be like to [fill in the blank]. But how often I lapse into a kind of comparing, which slides into envy and then yearning. Oh, what I would give to have a life where I [fill in the blank]! But the longer I live the more I am comforted by the sufficiency of now. Not that it's ever perfect, or that I am evolving in the best way possible. Maybe it's just that I don't feel the need to fill in any blanks. Thanks for all the detail, right down to the wax seal. Favorite phrase: "all glamor, no grasp." Love it.
Wonderful to think of you two together for 35 years. We will be at 34 this year.
Well, while we're calling out favorite lines, these: "But the longer I live the more I am comforted by the sufficiency of now. Not that it's ever perfect, or that I am evolving in the best way possible. Maybe it's just that I don't feel the need to fill in any blanks."
The sufficiency of now. Phew, that's it! Thank you, Stew.
As for your curiosity, see my comment above to Amy. ☺️
Love the comment to Amy. Thanks for pointing it out, though I must say part the fun of your weekly post is reading the comments. I wish I could meet them all some day!
Thank you, Karen. I'm having a harder time being light-hearted lately, given all we're up against here. Some of this offered a much-needed diversion. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
The look on both your faces (especially your husband's) is SO good. It says, "We've been doing this a long time. Nothing shocks us anymore."
My husband and I had a fancy-pants wedding at a fancy-pants hotel, mostly because my parents, who were married in a non-event Soviet ceremony, wanted a proper wedding for their only daughter. We were all of 21. (I know, babies!) The volume of my wedding dress could have given Princess Diana's a run for its money. And my veil came *this* close to catching fire from a candelabra on the table when my husband and I leaned in for a kiss for the photographer.
Thirty-five years later, I still carry a torch for him. :-)
Oh -- we're anniversary twins! Do share pics of your "get-up" sometime. I bet you were a stunning bride. (Only daughter here, too.)
Thanks for sharing this delightful comment, Irena. I have to admit to still being shocked every now and then, but we're a lot less rough around the edges overall. Wind and weather have a way of softening things, right?
I laughed out loud at your description of a country wedding, in part because I have attended such celebrations on the Eastern Shore, with the wedding couple in camo, eating venison chili and tossing back 9 Oz Buds!
I loved your suggestion of sending a note to someone who has made a difference in your life. My dear friend Bunny has always had my back, through cancer, through divorce, through moving back to the mid-west. She lost her daughter to cancer. Her daughter loved bats! I recently found a small Sterling silver bat on a key ring, made in Ireland by a silversmith which I am sending to her with love and remembrance.
Oh, Susan, I’m glad you saw the fun in that old country wedding bit. As it were, our hunting friends had off seasons, and we have no venison in our freezer for the first time in at least 20 years. I’m not sure how we’re going to eat now!
Thank you for sharing about your friend Bunny. That part of your comment brought tears to my eyes. Cancer is such a heartbreaker. I know she will love the bat memento. More, she’ll love that you thought to send it to her. Bats are amazing creatures. Her daughter must have been very special to recognize that. ❤️🩹 🦇 ⭐️
T&C! I am duly impressed, but even more impressed by your writing, and by capturing our “antebellum-adjacent” Deb days so perfectly. 🌹
I had a notion to devote an entire essay to those days, but I realized soon after the idea formed that my memories are too patchy. And uncharacteristically, I'm not sure I saved much memorabilia. Just as well, I think. Thanks for the comment, Stephanie.
Thank you for sharing your lovely voice and your memories. I do remember the T&C wedding photos. Though I never married and therefore never made it to those pages, I eagerly read my horoscope each month hoping for the best.
Thank you, Suzanne. Ending up in T&C felt a little like being pulled up on stage at a concert -- only not quite. 😅
How often did you feel those horoscopes were accurate? They sure had a way with words!
I always heard the birth announcements, wedding announcements, and obituaries referred to as the hatched, latched, and snatched section of the newspaper, which pretty much sums up life’s progression.
Haha! Another Idahoan zinger. I'd say that's just right. Thanks, Switter.
I love this! Over here we say 'hatched, matched and despatched'! ☺️
Also terrific!! 🇬🇧
I love your words, observations, but especially your memories....I am so privileged to have been standing not to far away from that beautiful "cake-cutting newlywed couple. .. I find myself laughing out loud often when reading the reviews of the "great wedding event.." Recently I posted a quote on FB that tells me all I need to know when I am officiating or reading about a wedding... Obviously it's more than a newsworthy event... And obviously it's a life-changing event... In Hugo's Les Miserables... I discovered the thread that holds the matrimonial moment and life as a couple together.... It is in the quote... "When you look at someone you love, you look into the eyes of God.".. I guess it's fun to read about the car the couple road in.. or how they were dressed.. or what songs were sung... or where they gathered for refreshments.... But to remember a vision of God across from you for a fleeting moment ..makes the day special....makes it the best event for page 28...
It was one of my life's truest honors to have you there, Barry, trusting even then that we'd somehow still be sharing our connections now. So grateful.
Unpretentious stance,
wide open, curious, fair, kind.
Sans ostentation.
...
Honor to humble,
among epic presumptions.
Glory to gracious.
Thank you, Marisol -- for your lovely thoughts and for sharing this, too. Wide open!
Rearranged beads from strands shared in last week’s post on humility & hubris, which go well with the gowns, groans and growth you model in your essay: https://marisolmunozkiehne.substack.com/p/hubris-horrors-humility-honor
You kids are still looking good!
Thanks, John. Can't deny the effects of time and gravity, but we're still doing our best to make the days sing.
You crack me up. Thanks for brightening my day on this rather dreary morning. Wow. Debutante! I’ll practice my curtsy for the next time I see you. 😉
Glad to bring a in a little sunshine somehow -- it sure has been gray. Tradition would suggest there was at least some curtsying in the midst of it all, but I don't remember a one. We can practice together! Thanks, Janet.
After my hip replacement maybe! 😊
The wedding moment most memorable for us was releasing a pair of doves. I am 78, my husband of 10 years is 81
We are in love!
How wonderful, Jill! That must have been beautiful (and I trust someone captured a photo). Happy the two of you found each other when you did. Love that love!
Wonderful. Happy sigh. I chuckled at your satirical wedding. Back in those days, it was plausible that such a wedding might take place. It seems far less likely these days. Unfortunately.
Which shows my take on things. Dad always joked to my sister that she should elope (to save him the money. The bride’s parents always paid for the wedding in those days). He never dared say it to me, knowing that I would much prefer the simplicity of elopement than the OTT of an actual wedding. Shudder.
And she ended up marrying with a dress looking surprisingly like yours despite it being 1975, and I stayed very happily single.
Life’s a funny thing. I’m so glad your marriage has been worth it. You make such a beautiful couple now. Faded hair suits a lot of us very well. I was never happy with the extreme vividness of my youth. I feel I’ve finally grown into myself. Bliss in my mid-60s.
Sending heaps of hugs dear Elizabeth. Wishing you decades more of marital bliss. 🤗🤗
Oh, Beth, this made me smile.
I love that you stayed very happily single. We’re so often handed one narrative about what a life should look like, and it takes real self-knowledge to step into something different.
Your line about finally growing into yourself in your mid-60s — yes. That feels truer to me than anything about dresses or magazine features. Youth can be so loud and clumsy. The softer tones we settle into later feel much less volatile.
I’m touched by your generosity and also want to acknowledge that a life well-lived is measured in grounded contentment more than anything, that sense of having arrived in your own skin.
Sending hugs right back. May bliss in all its forms continue to emerge and deepen. 🤍
Happy early anniversary! It is always inspiring when people stick together -- and that you had a T&C moment in the spotlight with 29 others is just icing on that carrot cake. Stalking the woman from the old writeup to see how things turned out... too funny.
Aw, thanks, Amy. The buttercream icing on a carrot cake is part of why I love it so much, so that's a particularly well-suited adage here. I do wonder when curiosity crossed over into stalking. My mother once said, "I'm not nosey. I'm just detail oriented when it comes to other people's business." Apples fall near their trees...right? 😅
That was a warm, fun read, Elizabeth. And I had to enlarge and read the whole Amalfi coast story. I like being curious about other people's circumstances and fortunes, imagining what it must be like to [fill in the blank]. But how often I lapse into a kind of comparing, which slides into envy and then yearning. Oh, what I would give to have a life where I [fill in the blank]! But the longer I live the more I am comforted by the sufficiency of now. Not that it's ever perfect, or that I am evolving in the best way possible. Maybe it's just that I don't feel the need to fill in any blanks. Thanks for all the detail, right down to the wax seal. Favorite phrase: "all glamor, no grasp." Love it.
Wonderful to think of you two together for 35 years. We will be at 34 this year.
Well, while we're calling out favorite lines, these: "But the longer I live the more I am comforted by the sufficiency of now. Not that it's ever perfect, or that I am evolving in the best way possible. Maybe it's just that I don't feel the need to fill in any blanks."
The sufficiency of now. Phew, that's it! Thank you, Stew.
As for your curiosity, see my comment above to Amy. ☺️
Love the comment to Amy. Thanks for pointing it out, though I must say part the fun of your weekly post is reading the comments. I wish I could meet them all some day!
The real results are better than any glossy pictures any day! You are living the better story! 💝
What a sweet, sincere comment, Nancy. I love this! Many thanks. ☺️
oh, but this made my heart smile. thank you.
I appreciate you, Roe Squire. And mine is smiling back.
An enjoyable read and reminiscence. Loved seeing you and Rob as Debutante and Marshal!
Thank you, Karen. I'm having a harder time being light-hearted lately, given all we're up against here. Some of this offered a much-needed diversion. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
The look on both your faces (especially your husband's) is SO good. It says, "We've been doing this a long time. Nothing shocks us anymore."
My husband and I had a fancy-pants wedding at a fancy-pants hotel, mostly because my parents, who were married in a non-event Soviet ceremony, wanted a proper wedding for their only daughter. We were all of 21. (I know, babies!) The volume of my wedding dress could have given Princess Diana's a run for its money. And my veil came *this* close to catching fire from a candelabra on the table when my husband and I leaned in for a kiss for the photographer.
Thirty-five years later, I still carry a torch for him. :-)
Oh -- we're anniversary twins! Do share pics of your "get-up" sometime. I bet you were a stunning bride. (Only daughter here, too.)
Thanks for sharing this delightful comment, Irena. I have to admit to still being shocked every now and then, but we're a lot less rough around the edges overall. Wind and weather have a way of softening things, right?
What day is your anniversary? Ours is Aug. 5.
And yes: wind and weather definitely have a way of softening the edges. Beautifully put.
February 23 -- coming right up!
I laughed out loud at your description of a country wedding, in part because I have attended such celebrations on the Eastern Shore, with the wedding couple in camo, eating venison chili and tossing back 9 Oz Buds!
I loved your suggestion of sending a note to someone who has made a difference in your life. My dear friend Bunny has always had my back, through cancer, through divorce, through moving back to the mid-west. She lost her daughter to cancer. Her daughter loved bats! I recently found a small Sterling silver bat on a key ring, made in Ireland by a silversmith which I am sending to her with love and remembrance.
Oh, Susan, I’m glad you saw the fun in that old country wedding bit. As it were, our hunting friends had off seasons, and we have no venison in our freezer for the first time in at least 20 years. I’m not sure how we’re going to eat now!
Thank you for sharing about your friend Bunny. That part of your comment brought tears to my eyes. Cancer is such a heartbreaker. I know she will love the bat memento. More, she’ll love that you thought to send it to her. Bats are amazing creatures. Her daughter must have been very special to recognize that. ❤️🩹 🦇 ⭐️