My wife and I are juvenile. We get the New York Times on Sunday and we turn to the Styles section to make fun of the people in the wedding announcements. We like to point out the golddiggers, the cradle robbers, the guy marrying out of his looks department, the people who look alike and the people with giant heads. It’s awful and makes me a terrible person. I’m cool with that. Feel free to point out how shallow I am for doing this, and I won’t disagree.
Almost every week, there is one type of photo where we both just point and say, “Bitch!”. It is the one where the photo shows only the bride. If there is anything where there is a union of equals more than marriage, I don’t know what it is. Why on earth would you think that it is okay that in your wedding announcement, a wedding of two people as equals, that you should show only one of those people?
And it’s always the bride. In our years of doing this, there has never been a groom only picture. Even since the Times started printing gay couples a few years ago.
This seems to be a southern tradition. My older brother and his wife got married, and she had the big impressive bridal photo that was included as the “announcement photo”-- probably because it was tradition to do so in her family and not out of any major ego issues. I think it’s a little silly, but that’s mostly just me; I don’t have much of a clue of what’s done in the average weddings besides what you see on television so I don’t think I have a great perspective on the whole wedding industrial complex.
My mother and I do this. Of course, we’re such bitches that we also read the birth announcements and make fun of what people have named their children. But we are fine with that.
However, my take on it is this. The guy didn’t want to be in the picture and the girl said, “OK,” rather than argue with him, not that the bride demanded her picture alone be shown.
Also, the papers in our area often use phrases like “bride-elect” or “groom-elect” which grate terribly to my mind. I picture voting for one’s future spouse.
Yes, here in NC the groom appears in maybe 25% of the photos. It doesn’t really bother me. Maybe some grooms do want in the photo and aren’t assertive enough to make it happen, but I can’t take on everyone’s issues, y’know? FTR, my husband and I refer to these as the “sports pages.”
My husband had a choice of going with me to have the pic taken or staying home and doing what he wanted. Since he didn’t care to be in the pic, he stayed home and did what he wanted.
One would think that my not insisting he do something he didn’t care for would make me less bitchy. Thanks for clearing that up.
Most of the wedding pictures you see in the papers are posed studio shots–taken before the wedding. But it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in the wedding dress before the great day. That’s probably why there are so many Bride-Only pictures.
Alternately: The Wedding Party disappears for a long photo shoot after the wedding, while the guests wait at the Reception. If there’s a full bar–merriment ensues!
I’ve seen engagement announcements in the papers. With suitable portraits of the happy couple–usually posed “informally” in a park.
It’s traditional. Back in the day, all bridal photos in the paper were bride-only. It was done that way because it used to take a while to get a photo developed . A black & white photo of the bride used to be part of most wedding-photo packages. That photo was taken a couple of weeks before the wedding, developed and delivered to the newspaper with the write up on the wedding; then held until after the wedding. Sometimes, in a large city, it might be a couple of Sundays after the wedding before there was room for the write-up.
I was married for the first time in 1983 and, even as recent as that, that was how it was done. I went in and had a black & white photo made at the photography studio about a month before the wedding date. As it happened, I used silk flowers in my bouquet, so I was able to bring my own bouquet to use in the photo. For brides who were using fresh flowers, the photographer had several mockup bouquets to choose from. I filled out a form with info about myself, the groom and the particulars of the wedding and gave the photographer the names of my hometown newspaper, the groom’s hometown newspaper and our local newspaper. He sent the info and picture to the three papers. Again, this was all part of the photography package I paid for. We didn’t receive our actual wedding photographs until 6 weeks after the wedding. There was one photo of the two of us that would have been very nice as a newspaper photo, but if we had waited to use it it wouldn’t have been in the paper until months after the wedding.
Nowadays, with digital photography, it’s entirely possible to use a photo from the actual wedding in the newspaper – these are the ones you see which use the groom. But the wedding industry depends heavily on how-we-always-did-it so there are still plenty of women out there who want to do it the traditional way.
I think bride only is the traditional way, and bride + groom is a new(ish) thing. For that reason, it doesn’t bother me so much, because the trend is changing … slowly, but it’s changing. 30 years ago it would have been unusual to see any grooms in the pictures, unless the couple was famous for some reason and more of a news story than an announcement. The Times only recently started to allow pictures of people not in formal dress, so this is an area that moves slowly when it comes to changing traditions.
I always thought it was a fashion thing, so that you can see the bride’s veil, neckline and jewelry. The guy will be wearing a suit or tux, I don’t need a picture of that.
This is even more fun if there is an excruciatingly detailed description of the bride’s and bridesmaids’ dresses, the bouquets, the pew decorations, etc. I doubt the Times includes that. Indeed, there may be durned few newspapers anymore that allow space to be devoted to that kind of thing.
On your suggestion, I checked out the NYT’sVows. No heirloom lace with bouquets of stephanotis–but some interesting tidbits do appear.
The NYT does not charge for these announcements. But many papers do. So I’m sure they don’t mind what fills up the column inches. I’ll bet there are significant regional variations.
If I am reading this correct, the bride-only photos are not indicators of her selfish ego, but are instead a notice to the men around that this chick is no longer on the table as she belongs to someone now… is that right?
That was acutally de rigeur back in the day. My mother was married in 1948, and the newspaper carried not only a detailed description of her dress, but the maid of honor, bridesmaids and mother of the bride dresses. Ditto for the bridal showers - “Miss Bride Z. Illa was feted at a lunch today at the home of Mrs. Upwardly Mobile. The bride wore a dress from the Madame DeFarge collection and wore a corsage of deaths’ head orchids”.
Oh shut up.Some people (XX uterus carring people) think like that but we don’t all do. When I think about my wedding I think about how good Henry will look in a tux. I’d be happy to show up naked…and he’d probably like that.
And I came here to say it bothers me. To re-enforce the idea it’s HER BIG DAY when it should be OUR BIG DAY. Sad for the groom, sad for the bride who doesn’t think she’ll have a bigger day. We don’t have to think like that anymore.
