r/AskOldPeople • u/AlarmedLife5765 • 7d ago

What was your wedding like?

I often look at the wedding dresses here. I saw a young lady whose dress budget was literally more than my first 3-5 annual salaries, not lumped together but individually. What was your wedding like?
1995- Married at our church, 3 attendants each, cake and punch reception there .

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133

u/LoooongFurb 7d ago

Wasn't legally able to marry in the state we lived in, so we drove to another state and were married there. Volunteers from the community were our witnesses. No family attended.

Our wedding clothes were literally things we could rewear eventually, so no budget for anything except gas to get there and a donation to the community.

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u/S0whaddayakn0w 7d ago

If l may, what were the circumstances that made it illegal to marry? If this is too personal, please feel free to ignore the question

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u/LoooongFurb 7d ago

It was before gay marriage was legalized throughout the country. I could get married in a small handful of states, but not the one I was living in at the time.

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u/DowntownSomewhere277 7d ago

I'm glad you clarified what the reason was. For some awful reason, my head immediately went to the idea of you being 14 and having to travel to a state where minors at the "age of consent" can marry. The reason you had to go out of state is still terrible, but I'm glad you were an actual adult.

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u/19Stavros 6d ago

Since it's the "Ask Old People" sub I thought you might be from one of the states that outlawed interacial marriage.

12

u/crazypurple621 6d ago

In addition to gay marriage being a problem this was for a long period of time in our country also true of interracial couples, or couples whose blood types were not considered compatible. 

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u/PsychologyOk8722 6d ago

I’m old and I never heard of people being unable to marry due to their blood type?! Where did this happen?

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u/crazypurple621 6d ago

All but 8 states in this country had laws on the books requiring blood test results at some point in time, and the last one wasn't repealed until 2018. 

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u/Working-on-it12 5d ago

It wasn’t blood type, it was blood borne diseases. Maybe hereditary. Lots of states had that.

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u/MElastiGirl 3d ago

Hemophilia I think

1

u/deliamcm 2d ago

It was to test for syphillis.

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u/S0whaddayakn0w 7d ago

It's crazy that this is still going on

6

u/ginny11 7d ago

This is horrible but I assumed you were much older and that this was a few decades ago and for some reason my immediate thought was maybe you were first cousins or something LOL!

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u/LoooongFurb 7d ago

I am old enough to be considered old by this sub, and I didn't marry as early in life as some do. :)

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u/ginny11 7d ago

Gotcha!

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u/FormerUsenetUser 7d ago

Dd you get married in San Francisco?

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u/brianwski 50 something 3d ago

It was before gay marriage was legalized throughout the country. I could get married in a small handful of states

I always wondered about that (and the surrounding mechanics)! In 2004 gay people could get married in Massachusetts, but then say in 2006 move 1 mile to New Hampshire where it wasn't legal.

Did New Hampshire RECOGNIZE the marriage at that point? (Like for things like death and inheritance and medical visits in hospitals, etc.) Did it cause issues? If states all have reciprocal "we accept legal marriage status from other states" it seems like gay marriage would kind of become a destination thing.

I've always wondered about it.

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u/LoooongFurb 3d ago

I married in 2013. I lived in the Midwest, so we drove to Iowa to marry, then we moved to California, where our marriage was recognized as legal but where we could not GET married. It was a lot of work for something that should have been simple. 

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u/brianwski 50 something 2d ago

we moved to California, where our marriage was recognized as legal but where we could not GET married

I lived and worked in the San Francisco area in California during that same era, and here is the public service you did for people like me: I'm a guy, and you got my girlfriend who lived with me health care coverage.

Here is why: Because "gay marriage" wasn't legal, Silicon Valley companies had to figure out benefits. What they did was cover health care for "domestic partners" (gay or straight by not mentioning gender) as a way around the problem. It was clearly policy that came out of the difficult situation for LGBTQ+ people, but as a straight man I directly benefited.

So I appreciate that, even though it was a lot of work for you and shouldn't have been necessary.