Good Ole Country Weddings

My favorite times and favorite memories are the annual church picnics we attended during the year. As youngsters, we didn’t get a chance to go anywhere except to church on Sundays, sometimes to town with Mom, and to these long-awaited picnics. Another occasion was a good old country wedding.

The custom in those days was to go to the bride-to-be’s home prior to the wedding, which usually consisted of all of the bride’s kinfolk. After the cars were all parked in the front yard, two or three boys were in charge of decorating the cars with streamers or ribbons of crepe paper. The ribbons were about ten or twelve feet long and usually pink, white and blue and were attached to the bumpers, door handles, and radio antennas.

Then, the bride, all dressed in white was escorted into the lead car and all the rest would follow in a caravan to the country church where the groom was waiting.

As a youngster, I vividly recall another tradition. Just before leaving the bride’s home, at the entrance to the home, there was a man and woman dressed up as an old couple. I guess they were to represent the parents of the bride. Anyway, the woman had an old scarf and was holding a baby doll in her arms. The old man had on rubber boots, dingy pants and was holding a shotgun on his shoulder. In the other hand was a cigar box which he held out to the driver of each car as it came by. The driver was expected to dish out some cash to help pay for baby expenses or any other bills that might come up in the future. The closest we come to this tradition these days is when the bride’s shoe is circulated at the wedding reception inside an enclosed air-conditioned hall.

Usually after the church ceremony all the wedding party went back to the bride’s parents’ home for the reception, including a meal and drinks. One fond memory of mine is when we arrived, we kids were told to help ourselves to the drinks located in a cistern house by the windmill. We didn’t have to be told twice. It wasn’t too often that a 9-year-old could help himself to all the soda he could drink on a hot July day!

Inside the cistern house was a wagon sheet or oil cloth tarp covering three or four wash tubs full of block ice and soda water. There were NEHI drinks all in my favorite flavors – strawberry, orange, grape, lemon and of course, RC. I was in “hog heaven!” After trying some of each flavor at least twice during that afternoon, I would decide which one was the best and then drink some more! That’s what makes for good memories of weddings and traditions.

There is one other tradition that no longer exists. While the men sat around drinking beer and talking politics, the women sat in a huge circle and watched while all the gifts were opened and passed from one woman to the next so each lady could see for herself what was given to the wedded couple and by whom. I guess that’s where the term “photographic memory” was established because later the women could remember and discussed who gave what for hours on end!!