Lifting the Veil on Wedding Anomalies

The bride wore white. And black and blue.

The pearl-studded taffeta gown--the white--was chosen especially for its plunging back, which displayed to best effect the black and blue: a large tattoo of a flying tiger on the bride’s shoulder. The fetching beast had been acquired by the bride just a few months before the wedding--probably an engagement present from her beloved.

The six bridesmaids wore identical dresses of screaming magenta--the raspberry-sherbet variety. Those dresses, too, had cutout backs, calling attention to six tattoos.

Looking like a bouquet of giant begonias, the bridesmaids paraded down the aisle of the church, followed by the bride, a weeping, branded carnation.

I’ve probably been a guest at sillier or more embarrassing weddings, but none has been as memorably dichotomous as that one. It was as much a union of two cultures--the traditional and the popular--as of two souls. Sadly, fashion beat out convention--the tattoos outlived the marriage.

Now that I have read Ann Shields’ story on June weddings, today’s Centerpiece story (page 36), I realize I am a nuptial-going lightweight. Shields is married to a minister, so she has observed more than her fair share of unusual weddings.

“Like the ceremony in Ojai,” she said, “where the bride’s mother-in-law, confused by the role of the best man, crawled on her hands and knees, in an attempt to be discreet, up to my husband and told him he was marrying the bride to the wrong man.”

Or there was the wedding Shields attended in the Valley, also officiated by her husband. “My cousin was marrying a member of the Hells Angels,” Shields said. “There were Harleys driving alongside limos. When we arrived at the park, a woman in a flowing gown played soothing music on the harp. It was a rather incongruous affair.”

And another wedding that didn’t last long. But, once again, the tattoos did.