BABY BOOMER WEDDING HISTORY

via Gillaspie Studios

Like most history, baby boomer wedding history has at least two sides.

Just the words baby boomer wedding history pops up the 1960’s classic image of the Woodstock couple standing in the mud.

Or the times I best manned my brothers’ weddings in the 70’s and they co-best manned mine in the 80’s.

Three decades of wedding venues include a Catholic Church, a formal garden, and a well cover.

Only one of them had Chernobyl radiation rain, ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man, and a carpet dance floor with ankle high beer foam.

Some wedding get all the breaks.

Any wedding pales in comparison to a kid’s wedding and you’re one of the parents.

Other than bride and groom, the best titles of the wedding day are mother and father of the bride or groom.

Since parent of the bride or groom only lasts one day, my advice is milk it.

Before the wedding day you’re a parent of a boyfriend or girlfriend, parent of the fiance? The day after you’re parent of the husband or wife.

No one gets a trophy and a juice box on those days, but you do on Father of the Groom day, also known as the wedding day.

Share parent of the bride or groom joy with Grandparents of Groom/Bride and Siblings of the Bride/Groom.

After enough weddings you learn the most important people in the show are the bride and mother of the bride.

The rest of the wedding party usually understands the bridal chain of command and scramble for relevance.

One father of the groom duty is a support role for mother of the groom. It’s more than keeping her out of the way. Instead, it’s picking up the slack before the wedding hour.

If father of the groom forgot to pick up and deliver flower vases the weed before the wedding, he needs to focus on flower.

If that lapse meant someone has to pick up and deliver flower vases full of flowers three hours before the wedding, father of the groom wants the job.

If the wedding team needs their cars parked, who wants that job? You know the answer.

The day before my wedding I had a $500 offer to go to Las Vegas.

Either the Elvis Chapel on a sunny May day, or an outdoor Oregon wedding in the driving rain.

The Oregon way means you’ll get wet.

Everybody gets a little wet.

I didn’t take the offer in 1986. At the same time I didn’t make any offers in 2016.

I didn’t pay a taxi to circle the block, or schedule the MAX train to squeal by every ten minutes.

It just worked out that way for baby boomer wedding history.