My Parent's Wedding

Herodotus Style

Twenty-four years ago was a special event in the history of my family; it was my parents wedding.  The story is told from many different views and in many different ways.  Such a large event can have so many little details, and each person has their own story of what went on that night.  The wedding ceremony took place at Loyola College in the Chapel, and my grandmother says that my mom got her college degree from there. The reception took place at Westminster Hall, my dad says. My grandmother told me it was the place built overtop of where Edgar Allen Poe was buried. The reception was a huge event, and there was lots of dancing. Everyone enjoyed themselves and even say that it was a very “warm” reception.

First, when my parents got there, the guests were already there and there were hors d’oeuvres. My mom says they had a raw bar, marinated shrimp, a strawberry tree, and cocktails. The food was very enjoyable, and while the guests continued eating, my parents got some pictures taken.

            After my parent’s arrival and pictures were taken, they had crab imperial and did some dancing. My grandmother says that they danced a lot, and they had the best food. There were lots of different kinds of dances going on that night, from the first dance, the dance with the father, and, my mom says that she also danced with her mother. My dad recalls a “dollar dance,” while my mom corrects him and calls it the “apron dance.” This is a dance where the bride dances to an upbeat polka-type song, and dances with everyone who gives a dollar. It is a way for the newlyweds to get a little bit of money to start out with. After this, my mom threw the bouquet, and my dad threw the garter (which he accidentally called a girdle).  My mom says, after that there was more dancing, because the people who catch those things dance together.   My mom also told me that there were lots of other things that they did that are wedding traditions, like cutting the cake.  I would have loved to have been there, it sounded like so much fun!

            There was some discrepancy about how many people attended the wedding. My grandmother could not quite recall, but just said that it was a lot of people. My dad seemed kind of confused and could not decide whether it was 320 or 250 people. My mom said, with certainty, that there were 250 people in attendance. While we may not know for sure how many people were there, it was definitely a large amount.

            The story of my parents wedding, as told by a couple of my relatives, was very interesting and despite the contrasting memories, I got a basic understanding of what went on.  I loved hearing about all of the dances and other events, even though I may not ever know the exact story of the night. 

Thucydides Style

            Twenty-four years ago was an important date in my family history; my parent’s wedding. The wedding took place on “Saturday, the sixth of September nineteen hundred and eighty-six at two o’clock in the afternoon,” according to their wedding invitation. It also is stated that the wedding ceremony was to take place in the Loyola College Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland.  The wedding reception was held at the Westminster church, built over top of Edgar Allen Poe’s gravesite.   To prepare for the wedding, my mom had a wedding shower and a bachelorette party.  She also had to buy a wedding dress, which seemed to be a long process.  There are multiple pictures of my mom trying on dresses. They had to hire photographers and order the food and decide the amounts, etc. Planning their wedding seemed like a very complicated task.

            The tiniest details are even very important in a wedding.  There is a list of food that they need that is five pages long! It includes what needed to be bought, and exactly how much of it they needed. There is also a list of all the songs that should be played at the wedding.  They also had to order things like the flowers that would be there at the wedding, and what would be used for the bouquet.  Every single thing was perfectly organized for the wedding.

            After the preparations, they were finally married.  The marriage certificate can verify this, but other than that, not much is known about the actual ceremony.  The reception is where all the fun took place, a night full of wonderful food and dancing. In my parent’s video of their reception, it looks like all of the many people in attendance were having a great time. All of that hard work and little details seemed to have paid off! 

            After the wedding festivities, my parents went on their honeymoon to Saint Thomas.  The boarding passes showed me where they were going and the schedule of activities at the hotel looks like they were busy the whole time!  There seemed to be lots of fun things to do. 

            Now I know exactly what happened at their wedding,but this story lacks one thing: emotions.