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40 - Sunday, April 26, 1987 - North Shore News

Lifestyles

Some people’s weddings
have too much reality

MUCH AS we all love weddings, there is one currently
fashionable kind to which Miss Manners would just as soon
not be subjected. That is the Realistic Wedding.

She has no objection to shed-
ding a gentle tear at the ceremony
of union, and might even be
prevailed upon later to shed
another should that union be shat-
tered by cold reality. She just ob-
jects to being asked to do both at
once.

ERE
miss
manners

- -by Judith
ve Martin

The realistic‘ wedding is the one

at which everybody * makes a
special effort to have cold reality
blowing right through the
festivities, ruffling all the
bridesmaids’. dresses and Miss
Manners’ spirits. :
The clergyman turns toward. the
bright faces at ti: altar and ‘says,
“‘Miranda and Justinian, when you
have problems, and you wil! have
problems — every marriage does
-—— when you fight with each other
”

. The bridal couple exchange vows
with escape clauses — “‘as long as

’

we both shall love,’’ rather than
‘‘shall live.’’ They also make sly
teferences to the physical side of
marriage, for the benefit of those
present who didn’t know there was
one, and cheerfully explain the
prenuptial arrangements they have
made in case the marriage is
dissolved.

The parents talk jocularly about
how much the wedding is costing
them per head and whether they
are getting back the investment in
the value of the wedding presents.

Or they’re not feeling jocular
and they .ake advantage of the
presence of ex-spouses and their
subsequent mates in order to re-
enact their own divorces for the
entertainment of those who don’t
find weddings festivity enough.

The bridal couple, having widely
advertised their consumer hopes in
advance, or perhaps having advis-
ed everyone on the invitation itself
of the fact that they have
everything they need except
money, which they need more of,

‘have had cards printed in advance
- , thanking people, so-that they wiil

not have to bother expressing
one-on-one gratitude. ,
However, the bride and

bridegroom are having a wonder-
ful time, as evidenced by the fact
that they don’t want to leave,
because they admit they can’t
think of anything they especially
want to do rather than party with
their friends.

But, you may protest, is not all
this, uh, reality true?

Truth is not necessarily a
defense with Miss Manners. Never
has been. When she was a mere
slip of a girl, the romantic heroine
who most took her fancy was the
elderly Countess .Rosmarin Osten-
burg in Christopher Fry’s ‘The
Dark Is Light Enough,’’ who said,
in blank verse:

“1 know the true world, and you
know I do.

“But we needn’t let it think we
all bow down.”’

Yes, Miss Manners is aware that
marriages are often based on com-
promise, rather than high
romance; that courtships are no
longer always conducted under
chaperoned conditions; and that
weddings sometimes lead to
unhappily ever after.

She knows that: both weddings
and setting up housekeeping cost
money, and that.those involved are
aware of the expense.

‘But she prefers to keep weddings
a time to look upward rather than
to bow down to all these truths.

ARA ELMAJIAN DDS.

shes to announce the
relocation of his dental office to

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