OTHER PEOPLE’S WEDDINGS

Sunday, June 28. 2009

OTHER PEOPLE’S WEDDINGS

With all the attention I’ve been giving to Ms. Aura and the portal, life goes on here in Domain. The big news: Gran’s sudden wedding to Mr. Squirrel. I just came back from the happy event down at the courthouse.
It shouldn’t be surprising in retrospect. At their age it makes no sense to wait, and they already lost the time Mr. Squirrel spent in prison. (Meanwhile, I’m still going to hold off marrying Fenton until after we graduate.)
After the ceremony everyone went out to dinner at a local omnivore restaurant that caters to all diets. To make sure none of the patrons get devoured, they stamp your hand when you enter. That identifies you as a customer, and the stamp itself tastes awful in order to dissuade predators that would otherwise ignore the rules.
They didn’t mention a honeymoon. I doubt Mr. Squirrel wants to travel much after his prison stay; preferring to enjoy being back in his own house for a while. Tomorrow, Dad is going to help Gran move her stuff over from George and Danielle’s place where she’d been living. With George Fennec now doing most of the child care for baby Francis, Gran hadn’t been needed as much anyway.
None of Mr. Squirrel’s family was in attendance, so I suspect there’s some disapproval on their part. Of course, Gran being the object of someone else’s judgmental nature is karma of the highest sort.
Today's question: what are some human wedding customs?

Posted by Lindesfarne at 02:06 | Comments (32) | Trackbacks (0)

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Most women in American weddings here wear white dresses. My cousin and aunt both did. The men wear tuxedos. The bridesmaids wear fairly normal clothes. We don't have to wear cocoons or feathers as I've seen in your neck of the woods. However, the dresses can still be pretty awful. I'm just praying my sister doesn't choose yellow. It's her favorite color, but I look positively atrocious in it. I think I'll allow her and my youngest girl cousin, who is probably going to be my other bridesmaid if and when I get married, to choose the colors they wear so long as they don't clash with each other or the decorations. I'll wear lavender.

Some other customs include cake, often chocolate or vanilla, with an elaborate design in frosting. There are not that many customs for where a wedding is held. Many people hold them in churches, chapels or temples, but many others hold them in parks, in courthouses as your Gram did, in their families homes, and in lots of other places.

I wish I could tell you to just go to snopes.com which, in addition to being a great place to send people who forward completely false things, is a repository for wedding knowledge and has a few links to other places. Unfortunately, snopes is probably different for you, so it wouldn't tell you much about our customs. I do have to say that we don't have the option of placing half the guests on the ceiling to make room for more guests.

#1 Selina Grace on 2009-06-28 03:09 (Reply)

I regularly visit snopes.com for the debunkings. It's one of my bookmarks!

#2 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2009-06-28 03:13 (Reply)

I agree that waiting untill you finish collage to get married is the way to go. At this stage in your life taking 2 or 3 magers being marrige would put a lot of preasure on your time. My neice thru a graguation party for her boyfreind. She also had a suprise wedding. So they did the same thing you did by waiting. Also I think Rudy showed that he knows how to share. By sharing his callage scholership with fiona after she lost her fortune he showed true love.

#2.1 steven brams on 2009-07-19 18:28 (Reply)

We used to throw rice at the bride and groom as they leave the wedding site. But birds (who, of course, are unintelligent here) would eat the rice, and it would swell up inside them, making them sick or even killing them. So we have recently switched to birdseed.

#3 Thomas Mazanec (Link) on 2009-06-28 09:00 (Reply)

Actually, the website both Selina and Linde mentioned disproves this:
http://snopes.com/critters/crusader/birdrice.asp

#3.1 Bär on 2009-06-28 11:16 (Reply)

Sorry. My bad.

#3.1.1 Tom Mazanec (Link) on 2009-06-28 14:14 (Reply)

I hate that hand-stamping practice. Sorry to say it's current in the human world too. (Probably easier with our bald skin.)

#4 Tim Tylor on 2009-06-28 09:04 (Reply)

Wait, you're resturaunts handstamp customers so taht other guests won't eat them? Dang, humans realy (*will*) eat anything.

#4.1 Bioman on 2009-06-28 18:40 (Reply)

Tim, that brings up an interesting question - Lindy mentioned in her blog why we do the handstamping thing here, but I'm sure someone mentioned before that in the human world you don't have predation and therefore you don't go hunting other residents of your world for food. So why on earth would they have handstamping there if it's not to protect folks from being eaten?

(I've been to that omnivore restaurant - personally I didn't care much for the food and didn't go back, now I know why! Must've ate a patron!)

"Waiter, there's a hare in my soup!" (Don't worry if you humans don't get it, I'm sure those in Domain are in hysterics now ... )

#4.2 Ken D. Lion on 2009-06-28 19:26 (Reply)

We have our own "predators" here that you need checking against but that's a subject best left off this family blog. Let's just say Dateline is good at catching them.

#4.2.1 Captain Napalm on 2009-06-28 23:11 (Reply)

Technically, 'predator' is only a term in that case and is not relevant to natural predators.

#4.2.1.1 Akaduur on 2009-07-01 19:33 (Reply)

Unfortunately, with the kind of "preditors" we have, hand stamping has become necessary.

#4.3 Mortar on 2009-07-05 18:57 (Reply)

Grin. What most would consider a marriage tradition these days has been in existence less than a century. The "tradition" in my family seems to have been home weddings for at least two hundred years or so. One set of grandparents had a drive-through wedding in 1920. I kid you not. The Justice of the Peace stood on his font porch as my grandparents sat in the buggy. My grandfather tried to get my wife and I to do the same when we got married. My parents were wed in the pastorium of a local church. My wife and I were wed in a church ceremony.

Shrug. People here seem to go a little crazy at weddings. Some drive off in a carriage. Some release doves. Bird seed had replaced rice long before my wife and I were wed. Some have a huge reception with caterers and bands. Ours? Our friends and relatives got together to make the cake and the refreshments.

There's a tradition now of trashing the wedding car, and it can get mean. There used to be a tradition of "serenading" the couple, which was simply low-grade harassment. My other grandfather broke that up nicely one night when some went too far with his daughter and son-in-law. Must have done a good job of it, too: I think that was the last instance of serenading in the community.

The main thing to keep in mind is that this is America, where we make our own traditions. There's always some busy-body who thinks you have to do things a certain way, but really, that's their problem. My advice for a young couple is to have the wedding you want; not what someone else demands. If it's simple, that's fine. If it's elaborate, that's fine, too. But it's your wedding and no one else's.

The one other thing I'd advise a young couple to keep in mind is that the wedding doesn't make the marriage. Many a fancy wedding has ended in divorce; many a simple wedding has endured the test of time. It's how you live the marriage that counts.

#5 Harry on 2009-06-28 12:18 (Reply)

I'm also curious about human weddings. What is the traditional reception meal ((assuming you have receptions))?

#6 Bioman on 2009-06-28 17:17 (Reply)

it varies depending on the family and the event. within my own extended family, it tends to be southern style cooking. fried chicken, ham, greenbeans, corn, etc. occassionally some wild game dishes like turkey, deer, or duck if it occurs close enough to fall. but they're mostly from missouri, so thats typical fare for the region regardless of event.

but since my father is a minister, i've seen plenty of variety. one of them ore interesting receptions i've been to was the weeding of a haitian couple. they spit-roasted an entire pig, and most of the other dishes were exotic to my experiance. good though.

my apoligies to any avian, porcine, or ruminant readers on the otherside of the gate. but the question was asked.

#6.1 Mithril (Link) on 2009-06-28 19:38 (Reply)

> one of them ore [sic] interesting receptions i've been to
> was the weeding of a haitian couple

Yeah, you gotta weed out those haitions.

#6.1.1 Mortar on 2009-07-05 19:07 (Reply)

Major traditionalists from the Victorian Era onward have the bride wear "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe." (The last one is hard to find outside of wedding-themed stores nowadays.)

#7 Classic Steve (Link) on 2009-06-28 21:16 (Reply)

That sounds nice. Quick question, whats a 'shoe'?

#7.1 Bioman on 2009-06-29 01:09 (Reply)

Quick answer: Something hard you wear on your foot. Domain has horseshoes, but humans usually cover their entire feet.

#7.1.1 Classic Steve (Link) on 2009-06-29 10:53 (Reply)

Ah thanks, I should have thought of that, but I don't hang out with equines much (predator-prey thing) so I didn't really think of that. Looking it up, it says that horses wear shoes to prevent their hooves from splitting, a painful and potentialy fatal problem. Are humans concerned about somthing similar?

#7.1.1.1 Bioman on 2009-06-30 13:30 (Reply)

No. Human feet are somewhat soft, lacking pads and much other protection. Shoes mainly serve as protection against modern dangers, such as nails, glass, other sharp objects, and, believe it or not, hot sidewalks.

#7.1.1.1.1 Akaduur on 2009-06-30 19:23 (Reply)

To further clarify, we don't nail them to our feet, they are secured through string, elastic, or Velcro. By the way, Lindesfarne, this past week, on the human side, a famous pop star, billionare pitchman, and two actors died. (mostly of heart problems). Did a similar tragedy happen on your side of the portal?

#7.1.1.2 Akaduur on 2009-06-30 14:04 (Reply)

Hand-stamping (*old* memory for me) usually happens at a bar that serves alcoholic beverages. It can indicate that you've paid the 'cover fee' AKA the price of a couple of drinks. It is also used at dance clubs for much the same reason.

One of our odder wedding ceremonies involves the bride always wearing white, Some people believe this represents the 'purity' of the bride, but this explanation falls apart when it's the bride's third, fourth or fifth marriage. Apparently this tradition actually started to show off. It showed you were so well-off that you could afford a completely impractical dress for a one-time occasion. In other words, people were flaunting their wealth.

Silly question: has it occurred to you that your 'Aunt' Danielle is truly your closest biological relative on your side of the portal? Since you are the only humans (of which we're aware), the two of you do share some common ancestry somewhere along the line. That's a claim no one else can make: neither of you have any true ancestry over there....

#8 CharlieG on 2009-06-28 21:23 (Reply)

Let's see: I've attended weddings in churches, church halls, our family's backyard, and on board a historic ship. It's pretty much anyone's choice these days; some couples tend to make a competition for the most unusual venues - underwater, in the air, etc. (I hope you and Fenton will resist the temptation to have a wedding 'on the wing'....)

Oh, and as an aside to Thomas about birds being 'unintelligent' here: it rather depends what species you're looking at. Some parrots and corvids have been found to have a pretty high IQ, almost at the level of (dare I say it?) dolphins.

#9 LA/wts on 2009-06-28 21:29 (Reply)

Concerning avian intelligence, here's a paper that shows how pigeons have been successfully trained to discriminate paintings by Monet and Picasso, even new ones not shown to them before:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1334394

Genuine fine art connoisseurs.

#9.1 Bär on 2009-06-29 00:51 (Reply)

Yes, CharlieG, Danielle and I are close for that very reason.

#10 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2009-06-29 00:21 (Reply)

Which of course by that logic means that a good deal of the human race are victims of Dewclaw Assimilation, the phenomenon by which anyone who comes into contact with the Dewclaws seems to evntually become related to them. At least we're in good company (Resistance seems futile for anyone including Douglas, Corrie, George, Martha, Fiona and others). One can only hope we as a species can use this info to finally UNITE...and come up with a decent excuse for not attending their family reunion. Apparently "I was almost eaten" doesn't cut it.

I'm glad that Douglas and Dorothy didn't take a honeymoon. I wouldn't want to be on a plane with Douglas, he skyjacked the last one he was on back when he went by D.B.

#10.1 Elwood Blutarsky on 2009-06-29 01:27 (Reply)

I was married twice. The first marriage foundered on a combination of health issues and lack of communication. The second is still going strong -- and has already lasted longer than the first. The first was a huge church wedding: 300 or so guests, catered entirely by friends of the bride's family. And I, as groom, was so stunned by the whole event that I was often quoted as saying afterwards, "Were there really flowers there? I never noticed them."

My second wedding was much smaller. We had a close friend who not only acted as priest but she also helped with the catering. There were a few too many (uninvited) insects, but our goal of finding a way for our family and friends to meet one another worked out pretty well. While not quite as different as your parents' families, there were some pretty huge divides between ours, too. It worked out very well!

#11 Derv on 2009-06-29 01:12 (Reply)

My own wedding was based loosely on the pagan handfasting (since we're Born-Again Pagans). The ceremony involved the presentation of gifts (she presented me with a sword, I presented her with a silver chalice), oaths followed by the exchange of the rings, then the loose binding of our hands together with a silk cord.

We also had the traditional post-wedding tossing. This is derived from ancient fortune-telling practice; whoever catches the item in question is most likely to get married next. The tossing of the bouquet to the females resulted in a mad scramble, while the tossing of the garter to the men resulted in my cowardly eternal-bachelor brother sneaking out the door (he knew I'd aim for him). This resulted in an interesting match-up between a slightly-ditzy nineteen-year-old Southern bridesmaid and a forty-something New England intellectual. Much amusement was had by all.

#12 Bookkeeper-At-Arms on 2009-07-01 03:46 (Reply)

I've never been married as I'm a minor. I've never even been in a relationship. ::shrug:: But for some reason I know several customs. They differ depending on where you are.

For example, in Iran, there's a wedding tradition that a happily married woman rubs two sugar loaves over the bride and groom's heads to pass on her joy and prosperity. Another Iranian one is that the newlyweds plunge their fingers in honey and then suck one another's fingers, so as to start their marriage on a sweet note.

#13 Anna C. on 2009-07-03 03:39 (Reply)

If only the hand is stamped, what's stopping the predators from eating everything BUT the hand?

#14 Osprey on 2009-07-04 04:39 (Reply)

2 things. Don't the hibernating species go to summer school to make up for sleeping most of the winter. Could Lindesfrane plan a combination graduation/wedding. It could be set for the 1st weekend of either June or July. If they don't graduate in the same year it would be after both have finished.

#15 steven brams on 2009-08-04 19:52 (Reply)

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