Welcome to Second Listen Saturday on the Parenting Roundabout podcast, where we share some
fun moments from a past episode for your weekend listening pleasure. Look for new
episodes every Monday through Friday. Today, we are talking about weddings, what
they're like these days now that maybe even our friends kids are starting to get
married, like Nicole I know, has had one of those, and whether
our kids actually get to go harry. Your kids have been deprived of her.
Yeah, they have never been to a wedding yet because here in New
Jersey, weddings are very expensive and within at least within the Italian family structure,
if you invite one person at a particular level, you have to invite
every person. So even if they wanted to invite my kids, they would
then need to invite everybody on that layer, which would be you know,
all the third cousins. Yes, however you're not however you number that,
and you know, my kids aren't really close with you know, they're they're
close with their first cousins, but other than that, not so much.
There's you know, there's not really been an opportunity and I don't think we've
really had any any friends that have had that that have gotten married. So
um, yeah, so they're still They've gone to an engagement party or two,
but no showers, no weddings, And that's just fine because you know,
if they went, we would have to factor in their meal in the
amount of money we get. Yes, I think you are supposed to.
It's good etiquette to try to at least cover the cost of your plate in
your gifts to the bride and groom. And as I may have just said
a minute or two ago, weddings are expensive here, receptions are expensive.
I was stunned coming from California, where we just had you know, cake
in the reception hall at the church, and now here it's full course meal,
dancing, alcohol, the works. So it's a lot. You have
your kids been going to weddings? Mine have been to a few. Our
next door neighbor has kids a little bit older than ours, and so we
were invited to two out of three daughter's weddings, and one we couldn't go
because it was during Christmas and we were going to be away. But then
when the youngest daughter got married, we were all invited and it was in
a barn far away like it was like a four hour drive. Oh my
goodness. And you know, the bride had no particular tie to that area,
but she she really wanted the barn. I guess that was her favorite
barn or something. So um, so yeah, we went to that one.
The kids went to that one. Um you know, of course they
went to my sister's wedding and what else and then um, my daughter.
A couple of years ago, one of my daughter's friend's older sister got married
and this was the one that was also a barn wedding, and it was
on Halloween, and so you attended the wedding in costume and the bride.
The bride her wedding dress was um Tianna from the Princess and the Frog,
like she had like a real not like hey, this dress kind of looks
like the one from the movie, like the exact one. Wow. And
then all the bridesmaids were a different Disney princess. Okay, took it all
the way. So I dressed up, my daughter, dressed up everybody,
you know, all the guests were expected to dress up. Wow. The
most unusual wedding I've been to was a back backyard barbecue wedding where the bride
and groom sealed their valves by throwing pies in each other's faces. So okay,
that was in California. Nothing so fun happens here. I think my
brother in law and his wife got married to outdoors, so that was at
least something different in like a botanical It was a botanical garden or a park
or something. It was a very nice setting. But other than that,
it's pretty traditional, at least in the circles we go in. I mean
there may be people having weird weddings, I don't know, but not not
Amongst Rick's many many cousins and their children, which is yeah, no,
um, Mike, we've been to my kids well because when we got because
I got married when I was younger than my friends and so I had kids
before them, so my kids were in wedding parties. So when they were
younger, because they were like the only little kids, and my friends knew,
so we hired them out. Now so and they were just like typical
traditional church with the reception and dance afterwards, and then you know, kind
of dried up for a bit, and now we're going to our kids friends
weddings and it's I love it because they just seem to have so much more
freedom and they're not so mired in tradition as what our weddings are. I
mean, if I had to do my wedding over again, I would in
a heartbeat, like mine was just too too rigid and too traditional and um
and I just love that, just you know, not so much that anything
goes, but that things can be fun and enjoyable and at least on the
surface, you know, because he knows what's gonna be. But like,
you know, I think I mentioned this before, but the last one we
went to was um Down Your Sea World in San Diego, and it was
out on a lawn. Um. It was gorgeous, and my son was
was a bride's man, so he was on the you know, he's one
of the bride's best friends and so he was on her side, and he
wore the same colors as the bridesmaids. He carried a bouquet down the aisle
um and you know, in the groom actually had one of his good friend
ends, his female on his side, and she wore the gray that the
groomsman were wearing, and she had a bootiner. Yeah. So and I
love that because when I got I mean when I got married, and I
still do. I have a very very close friend who I've I've grown up
with and he, you know, I's probably one of my closest friends outside
of my husband, and I would have loved for him to be in my
wedding party, but it was just not done at that time, and so
he ended up being an usher or something like that. So I still thought
him in some of the photos. But yeah, so I just love the
freedom that they have now. It just seems so much more creative leeway.
Yeah, right, well, certainly more fun when you're going to the wedding
to see something different instead of just the same. Yeah. I mean,
my wedding was was pretty traditional and I really enjoyed it and it was really
fun. But you know, from the point of view out in the pews,
like, is anything different going to happen? Is there anything you can
see here that will be interesting hopefully positive? You know, you don't wish
for something bad to happen, but September or something, but something like,
you know, a gender switch in the wedding party or unusual for this is
of some sort. The one that I'm going to um in a few weeks,
which is um another barn, right, so that would be three for
three on the barn weddings in Wisconsin. You have to link in the show
notes to them. McSweeney's things about about the barn not wanting to barnes are
protesting. But anyway, this one's gonna have hay rides, a bonfire,
my goodness. The dinner is a pig roast. There's gonna be s'mores.
Like it's wow, yeah on a Friday night. So yeah, it is
well, and I feel like the food is getting better. I mean that
whole candy bar thing, you know with all that Oh yeah, that's from
We got a churro stand and you know, um, like all sorts of
fun thing. Yeah, the weddings we go to here, there's usually like
a whole like a cocktail hour with or d'uvres, either in the same place
or in a separate place, you know, with nearby, um, and
so you like load up on that and then you go in and then there's
all the different courses and then there's the all different desserts and the king.
It's quite the thing. My son would be horribly bored by the wedding ceremony,
would not be interested in the dancing would be annoyed by the loud music,
But holy cow, would he love the four solid hours of eating like
you're on a cruise. Yeah, it would be like all those times I
feel like I haven't eaten my my money's worth. He would. He would
take the extra plates for me. It would just be heaven for him.
I always feel a little bit bad when we go to one of these big
receptions, thinking how much she would enjoy it, right. I try telling
him about the food later, but he's not so interested. If it's not
they're not the same, whereas my daughter would enjoy the dancing and all the
other stuff. So one day. Even the first dances now are just fun
to watch because you just you know they're coming up. They're all they're always
some sort of gimmick or something involved with you know, it's no longer just
the bride and the groom standing in the middle of the dancelor and moving around
in the circle. You know, there's always something that that's another one like
the prom posle, where I feel kind of bad that they have to come
up with ye totally. But if you get like a fun couple and you
kind of feel like it's it's kind of them, like the last the one
that we went to because they're a younger couple and um, you know,
they they made it fun. I mean like he twalked me through and she's
like it was fun, you know, and people were laughing and they were
just having a great time with it. So um, which I just appreciate
because it just makes you know, I know that when we had our wedding,
it was more for I feel like it was more for our parents and
it was for us. Yeah, it was just a very sort of stuffy,
um events. Yeah, how can you tell I have issues? Yeah?
Are you looking forward to when you get to get to plan one in
your family? Me? Yeah, either of you. I'm not planning firing
a wedding platter? Will you make your wishes known? No, I'm just
it was this outsource and you know, I might have like I don't know,
I don't honestly, I it's their call. Yeah. I wonder if
I'll ever be like a backlash where people are like going very traditional because yeah,
no one's doing that anymore. Yeah, well that's true, but yeah
the other way, Yeah, it's a lot of pressure to keep coming up
with creative stuff. Yeah, no, I just want to get married.
I just want to put on a dress and go to a church. Well,
I think that or after those are the occasions where people belo or yeah,
well that may go to city hall or whatever. Let's see your wedding
planners for it's their job come up with that stuff. Yeah. Have you
ever had to go to a destination wedding? Um, while the barn that
was, that's true, but like I mean, people like expect everybody to
go to Mexico or some far away place or something. I can't quite imagine
that. Or Europe or cruise ships. Cruise ships. We saw wedding on
our last So like, if they're paying my way, okay, but otherwise
I don't know. Yeah, I don't think they're paying your Yeah, I
don't think so either. So I think I'm I don't think we've ever been
invited to one, but I can't quite imagine us going. Yeah, well
and especially if it was a party of four. Yeah, just I mean
just to elope and have a party after or something. We uh, when
we got married, we had a West Coast reception. We you know,
we had the We got married in New Jersey and then we went to Hawaii
for our honeymoon. On the way back, we stopped at my mom's in
California and she had a party for us, so that was kind of nice.
So people who couldn't actually, you know, travel to New Jersey for
the wedding, because of course I send invitations to everybody, even knowing they
couldn't go, but it seems like you can't just not. So why was
it in New Jersey and not where your family was? Well? Because I
was living in New Jersey at that time and never planning to live anywhere else,
so you know, my life was here, Okay, I was.
I was thirty one, right, you're yes, plus which you know,
the the entire New Jersey Italian wedding infrastructure would possibly not have released me.
So right, So my my mother in law's first child getting married, there
were you know, decades of payback, so um, yeah, I don't
think that would have been received too well. So I'm you know, much
easier for my mother to come out here and my sister than for everybody in
his family to have gone out there. So and yeah, and my life
was here where this is where I was living and was going to live.
We bought a house at that point, so Yeah, that makes wait,
it would been probably like flying everybody to California would have been cheaper than a
Jersey wedding reception. That really it expense cost in your date, like how
much those thousands? I I don't remember exactly. I just know that the
money I had saved up, you know, through my adult life thus far
pretty much went to pay for the wedding. I didn't feel it was my
dad had passed away by that time, and I didn't feel like it was
fair to ask my mom to pay for something that was so much different than
what it would have been if I was living, you know, where she
lived. So I paid for it, but that pretty much. Rick put
his life savings to that point on a down payment for a house, and
I paid for the wedding. Wow, yeah it was expensive. Wow how
much do you think here? So it's Catherine because my wedding. Yeah,
oh well, I mean it was still thousands like it, but we had
it in northeastern Pennsylvania. We were living in New York City at the time.
That was a non starter. And and my husband had tons of relatives
in the because we got married where he grew up, and a lot of
them were older like there was no way they were going to travel, you
know, especially even in that included some of the ones who was really really
close too, So we just we just needed to have it, you know,
where they could go. Yeah, but you know, like it was
a country column. So my I mean, my mom bought my dress.
My parents they just said, here's some money, and you decide how you're
going to spend it. And I think my mom probably did. But my
mom bought my dress because she wanted the experience of saying yes to the dress.
And we actually went to Clientfeld in the TV show You were There,
Yeah, yeah, the one in Brooklyn, m because she eloped, my
mom and you know, she just got married in a suit, and so
she really wanted to, um, you know, she thought it would be
fun to shop for a dress. So yeah, so she bought the dresses
and then it lived in my mother in law's attic for fifteen years. Mine's
in my attic, but now it's here.