WEDDING WOES!

Reflecting on a 1970s wedding. This piece was prompted by finding one of my sticky old photo albums, and is why many of the images  used leave a lot to be desired. They are now impossible to remove.

OK, so my partner Rob and I first  met in  Devonport in 1973.  The stars did not align for us  at the time  as I was heading off to London  on an extended working holiday. Meanwhile, Rob was busy with his career in Hobart and heavily involved in motor sport etc. . It was a few years before we reconnected.

By 1976 we  were living together in Sydney, where Rob was working in finance and me in public  libraries.

SYDNEY – Note the flares and cork platforms!

When we decided to get married, Tasmania was the natural choice for a church wedding. All my close family and many of our  old friends were still living there.

To be honest, neither Rob nor I were religious at all.  However, despite having  experienced the ‘swinging sixties’, Australia was still pretty  conservative and  church weddings  were the done thing. This now sounds ridiculous, but a full-on white wedding if you had been ‘living in sin’ as we had been, was frowned upon by many people…. well I imagined that was the feeling anyway. Also, I was suffering from a degree of social anxiety back then, and a big wedding would have been my worst nightmare. All this led to us planning  a small, morning  wedding in Devonport, where my recently separated mother was living.

As for the dress, well I bought a cream satin, three tiered outfit with a matching cape. It came from a wedding boutique  in Sydney’s Market street and cost me the princely sum of $350. It was my hat that now makes me cringe. Large floppy hats were fashionable in the 70s and mine was certainly that, with added ribbons at the back. 😰 It lodged in everyone’s memory because I was so nervous and tired during the ceremony that the wretched ribbons were trembling. I had barely slept the night before.  My bouquet of cream roses was perfect though, and so was Rob. 🩶

The wedding party itself was tiny. My sister Robyn (Robbie) was my matron of honour (I had been one of her bridesmaids)  and my sweet niece Jacqui was flower girl. Her aunt Anne made the soft apricot dress to complement mine.

Rob’s school friend Graeme was his Best Man,

On the morning of the big day Robbie and I went to have our hair done, and afterwards managed to lock ourselves out of the car. To make matters worse, Robbie tells me that the hairdressers had taken forever, so we didn’t have much time. I seem to have blocked that bit from my memory.  We were rescued by Robbie’s husband Wayne as far as I recall. No mobile phones  of course, so it was a  rather tricky situation.

Tassie weather can be unpredictable even in Summer (early December). Oh my word, it was spitting and blowing a gale as my Dad walked me into the church… built during the Great Depression. 😎

Pity the hat didn’t blow away really,

Inexplicably, the minister preached a dour sermon about people separating  far too frequently and not respecting the institution  of marriage. He was correct only in the fact that no fault divorce was allowing  many women to leave unhappy relationships. I was far too nervous to take it in, but my poor mother thought his comments were directed at her.   He didn’t even mention  the joy and wonder  of  love. When we came to the vows he  suddenly muttered  something about God’s Holy Ordinance, which I had no memory of saying at the rehearsal. For a moment I was struck dumb and he had to repeat it, with a very withering  look at me. OMG!

By the way, I think Rob should have worn a top hat or something, to balance my own creation.

The weather was even worse when we walked out of the church as Mr and Mrs Conolly.

Here is a very bad photo of the wedding breakfast at a local motel. This is the best I could find.

Our good friend Greg was master of ceremonies.

Greg, about to perform his duties as M.C.

He was very funny, though not always intentionally. At one point he referred to me returning to tertiary study, saying. ‘I think it’s wonderful that Pauline has done this at her age.’  😍   Well I was 26, which was pretty ancient for a Tasmanian bride in the 70s.  Greg read the telegrams that were so much a part of weddings; the real ones from absent friends and relatives and the rude joke ones.  Oh yes, and then we had the other speeches and  cut the cake. It was beautifully decorated by my brother’s sister-in-law Anne. I still have those frolicking cherubs.

Now I come to something so upsetting  that I hesitated to include it. However, it’s what contributed to our  ‘awful’ wedding so I have to be honest. While my parents were sitting beside me my father, within my hearing, asked my mother for a divorce. Even though it was she who  had left the marriage, Mum was shattered. I’m sure my Dad didn’t realize this, nor would he have intended to be so hurtful. The problem was that due to his upbringing  he was very insensitive. Darling Mum somehow kept smiling and I just pretended I hadn’t heard it. My heart was breaking for her though.

My beautiful mother Myra, She thought  I was so lucky to have Rob, and she was right.

OFF WE GO!

This is us leaving the reception for  a couple of days in Launceston. The early Instamatic photo makes the hire car look like a complete wreck even though it was new, and look what some wicked guests did to it.  We had to remove various tin cans before we could even take off,  Plus Rob had to stop at the nearest service station and clean off the windscreen. We didn’t have a honeymoon as such, which seems strange in retrospect.

Oh the relief of it all being over, although how wonderful everyone was in arranging things in our absence. I don’t  think I appreciated that enough at the time.  Here we are having dinner a few days later at  Madame Defarge, our favourite French restaurant in Sydney. I wore my ‘going away’ jacket and while putting it on that evening  I felt a lump in the  pocket. It was a sweet little miniature vase I’d admired at Robbie’s place. She had slipped it in as a  surprise and I treasure  it to this day.

A secret gift.

Well, we did it. 💛

And now for the finale…….only weeks  after our minister’s lecture about people  giving up on marriage, the wretched fellow left his own wife and ran off with the Sunday School teacher. Can you believe it?  The irony is that everyone in our wedding group; Robbie, Graeme, Greg and ourselves, have enjoyed long and happy marriages.

Apart from the heartbreaking incident with my mother, the fact that my wedding day  was a bit of a disaster doesn’t worry me in the slightest. I was never someone who dreamed of a fairytale day and Rob and I were already committed to each other. If it hadn’t been for the expectations of others we probably would have chosen a registry office ceremony. Mind you, when I mentioned to Rob that I was writing this story he said he loved our wedding, bless his heart.  💛

Due to our increasingly secular society  the  Devonport Methodist (later Uniting) Church  was sold. The congregation had dwindled and it was felt that a community centred, shop front place of worship was more  appropriate.

It’s incredible to think how society, relationships and marriage have changed in the last 50 odd years, all for the better in my opinion. You can marry the person you love whatever their gender, write your own vows, and get married under a beautiful tree for example, or not bother getting married at all.

For years afterwards my anxiety surrounding the wedding manifested in nightmares about marrying some anonymous, dreadful man. I would wake in such relief to be lying beside Rob.

NOTE – THE INFAMOUS HAT ENDED UP IN MY NIECE KATEY’S DRESS-UP BOX. I KEPT THE DRESS FOR YEARS AND WAS VERY PROUD OF THE FACT THAT I COULD STILL FIT INTO IT.  TWENTY YEARS ON I DECIDED TO SURPRISE  ROB BY WEARING IT WHEN HE CAME HOME FROM WORK.  GOOD GRIEF, I LOOKED LIKE DICKENS’ MISS HAVISHAM, AND WHIPPED IT OFF QUICK SMART.

HERE ARE SOME PHOTOS OF OTHER 1970s WEDDINGS.  I COULD NOT SEE ONE HAT AS BIG AS MINE THOUGH.