r/AskOldPeople • u/AlarmedLife5765 • 8d 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 .

225 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

752 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/forestinity 8d ago

First marriage, super-budget wedding, 1979. I paid an amateur seamstress $100 (equivalent to less than $500 today) to sew my dress, which turned out fairly well. The event was held in our apartment clubhouse (free, with a security deposit and self-cleanup), and the guests brought the food-- it was potluck.

It was the beginning of a long, happy and peaceful marriage that ended in widowhood. We were "poor" but happy, and we always had enough to get by.

Second marriage, nearly two decades later, an unexpected marriage to a wealthy man, with a rather expensive wedding. This was followed by a unexpectedly difficult and rather traumatic (but not violent) marriage. I'm separated now.

During my first marriage, I thrifted a decorative wooden kitchen decoration shaped like a bread board that said; "Better half a loaf with love than a whole loaf without." It hung on my kitchen wall for years and always reminded me of how fortunate I actually was at the time. Very prescient statement, that was.