“$1000 Dollar Wedding” is one of the highlights of Gram Parsons’ posthumous album “Grievous Angel” from 1974, but he had written the song quite some years before. There exists a piano demo from around 1967 that has been released on the anthology “Early Years”. It’s a beautiful song, one of the saddest I know of in which nobody dies. My question has always been: what did a $1000 dollar wedding signify in that time? Was is exceptionally cheap? In today’s money, you couldn’t do anything with that little money for a wedding, but what did it mean in the 60s?
Well, I went to this site and today’s worth of $1000 in 1967 is $7,744.85. As I learned in this thread (which inspired this thread), that still seems like a meager sum for a typical US wedding.
Sorry for posting so much, but I just noticed that I fucked up the song title :smack:. Of course it’s “$1000 Wedding”.
Can’t answer your question, EH; just to say, thanks for posting.
j
You can have a reasonable wedding for that amount ($7.5K), of course, but that it considered a bit on the lower side here in Chicago. No idea what it was like in 1967, though. I feel like the industry (which I am a part of–hell, I’ve photographed weddings where my fee for all the services and products alone has topped that number) has rocketed up the costs over the years-- when I listen to stories of weddings of my parents and my uncles and aunts, they seemed to be much more meager affairs: church ceremony and then a reception at a tavern was not unusual at all, so a thousand dollar wedding in that era feels like it may be somewhat a decent to-do.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I have always loved this song even though I don’t quite know what’s happening. Did the bride die? Runoff and leave the guy at the altar?
It is a sad song, that’s for sure.
Was a thousand dollar wedding, supposed to be held the other day
And with all the invitations sent
The young bride went away
I’ve always interpreted it that the bride run off.
Gram did a few. Don’t think twice, it’s alright. Don’t let it pull you away.
It was chump change to Gram. He was an OJ heir. He did a few songs about money too.
I know that he came from a wealthy family, though I remember that they made their money with citron plants, but that’s not really important. But I draw a blank thinking of any other of his songs dealing with money. What songs did you think of?
My daughter got married by reserving a restaurant and having a meal for 40 people. Pretty modest affair and I think that in 1967 it could have been done for $25 a plate.