We got married in a nice, middling-sized event — 40 or 50 people, I’d guess, in a little wedding chapel, with nothing particularly fancy or expensive. The best part was seeing old friends for a few hours, but if the wedding had taken place in 2020 rather than 1980, we would have skipped the whole thing, just had a tiny private ceremony (or even just a civil ceremony, the two of us signing a paper before witnesses) and been just as happy, and we’d still be just as married to this day. I guess it’s because we aren’t Texans, an alien subspecies with some wacky ideas.
The wedding photographer had already spent an hour or two inside with the unmasked wedding party when one of the bridesmaids approached her. The woman thanked her for still showing up, considering “everything that’s going on with the groom.”
When the photographer asked what she meant by that, the bridesmaid said the groom had tested positive for the coronavirus the day before. “She was looking for me to be like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,’ like I was going to agree with her that it was fine,” the photographer recalls. “So I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And she was like, ‘Oh no no no, don’t freak out. He doesn’t have symptoms. He’s fine.’”
The photographer, who has asthma and three kids, left with her assistant before the night was over. Her exit was tense. The wedding planner said it was the most unprofessional thing she’d ever seen. Bridesmaids accused her of heartlessly ruining an innocent woman’s wedding day. She recalls one bridesmaid telling her, “I’m a teacher, I have fourteen students. If I’m willing to risk it, why aren’t you?” Another said everyone was going to get COVID eventually, so what was the big deal? The friend of the bride who’d spilled the beans cried about being the “worst bridesmaid ever.”
Did I say wacky? I meant irresponsible. Also, that bridesmaid who was so cavalier about the health of her students needs to be fired, immediately.
The story ends with a nice kick in the butt.
The photographer who got sick after shooting the COVID-positive groom said her experiences throughout the pandemic have left her a little depressed. She recalled one conversation from that wedding, before she left the reception. “I have children,” she told a bridesmaid, “What if my children die?” The bridesmaid responded, “I understand, but this is her wedding day.”
That’s one sick culture when the fancy party on day one of a marriage is worth the lives of a few children. There’s this whole bridezilla stereotype that really needs to die.
Not all Texans are like that. I personally know at least two Texans who are nice people and wouldn’t infect people with a hideous disease for their own convenience. Stereotyping-probably not the best idea, but I get your point.
The wife and I did the $99 quickie-wed here in Fort Worth.
That’ll be 30 years ago this January. The quality of the wedding has exactly nothing to do with the quality of the marriage.
A culture of selfish assholes is needed to justify the selfish assholes at the top.
Well, you know how they voted for.
Same message for a long time –
Fuck Texas!
Way, way too many people think if you aren’t the one stabbing them or pulling the trigger it isn’t their fault. “You got sick breathing my air? You should’ve taken personal responsibility! Oh you are taking personal responsibility and leaving? Why are you ruining my wedding?”
These are the people McConnell’s trying to cover with his covid indemnity plan.
@Christoph, Do you really think we needed to hear a #NOTALLTEXANS here? Do you imagine PZ’s readers don’t know that already? Do your two whole reasonable Texans tilt the balance of the seething mass of ignorant idiocy that overwhelms Texas? What was your point in commenting?
Dying isn’t the only risk of Covid-19. Around 10% will be long haulers, sick for a long time. Something like half of those will be permanently disabled.
I now know someone who also lost parts of their lower extremities to Covid-19 virus.
They are now learning to walk again with artificial body parts.
Strangely enough, they weren’t even all that sick.
Until the blood clotting set it.
Also, my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson live in Texas now.
@johnhattan, I disagree – “The quality of the wedding has exactly nothing to do with the quality of the marriage.” My observation is the length of the marriage is inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on the wedding relative to the couples means.
My late beloved wife and I had a small wedding with dinner being a Chinese buffet in aback room. We had 41 wonderful years until her far too soon passing.
The selfishness the couple displayed does not bode well for their future.
My wife and I got married two weeks ago. We were both masked, as was the very friendly clerk who led us through signing the marriage license at the courthouse. 20 minutes, $35, done. Had a Zoom call with friends and family afterwards to celebrate. I have never understood the need to have dozens or hundreds of people witness your marriage, and I am utterly baffled by doing so during a pandemic. I wonder how many of the people at these events in Texas scoff at “virtue signaling” under different circumstances?
The whole bridezilla industry has long been a problem, although the selfishness and self-importance of this bridal party really is a new low. Causing actual serious/fatal illnrss is not what they often stoop to.
I recall Miss Manners writing that considering the wedding “the most important day of my life” was not a good idea, since it puts the subsequent marriage as of only secondary importance.
Never caught on to the princess-for-a-day idea anyway. These weddings routinely cost on the order of $40,000. If I had $40,000, I certainly would not blow it on one day pretending to be a precious queenly being around whom the heavens revolve.
Here’s an item Judith Martin recently published in her column:
@bionichips, nail head squarely met hammer. They’re selfish children, who will bring one another, along with those in their orbit, misery.
My wife and I were married by a mutual friend, a justice of the peace, with around a dozen friends as witnesses. End of this month will be 39 years.
Could add a drone strike since these wedding-goers are so keen to take all the modern risks of getting married.
(Oh wait, I forgot, we don’t have those at domestic weddings.)
Just a few days ago, a neighbour asked me how much would I charge for a set of pictures and video on a similar event, not too close to my place. I gave him the look, and asked: is it a closed of open saloon? Is it in a yard? In the open or in a closed place, he said that it was going to be in a closed environment, for 6 hours tops, 200 guests. I said: I’m sorry. No ammount of money will make me go and risk contagion, and therefore, risck exposing my family to the same risk. I will not do it.
Somehow he understood and said that it was a shame, given my pervious work (I’n a graphic designer, not a weding photograper, but I manage to bring relatively good pictures). And although My brothers and I have been trying to survive with so little work, we manage.
@ Artor, # 7: What was my point in commenting, you ask? I thought it was obvious. It was just a polite suggestion to not judge people by where they’re from or where they live. While we’re at it, how about we don’t judge people by skin color, nationality, or religion, it’s pretty much the same thing. Judge them on their behavior. At least that shows you’ve put some thought into it.
@13 FFS really? Now I know why zombie outbreaks happen so fast in movies. Uncle Ted would be gnawing on the wedding photographer and the bride would be upset that they were taken to hospital before the flower toss.
I do not know what to add to that. I am just dumbfounded by the reaction to this whole thing.
The other day there was a lock down shelter in place order for parts of the North east because of severe snow storm. I do not remember any protest about that order.
uncle frogy
Sadly many American’s are extremely self absorbed. Scary to me!
“I will sue the shit out of them. The bill for the wedding will be chump change next to this one.”
Well, she should, anyway.
By the way, is anyone checking up on that teacher who was definitely also exposed? Was she tested? Did she isolate? Did her class have a mysterious outbreak two weeks later?
I live in Poland where number of active cases per 1 million people is 1/5th of that for US (even with our government .falsifying stats)
I just got married.
There were around 25 guests and 1 photographer present in masks with only 5 people being unmasked (bride, groom, best man, maid of honor, official). Civil ceremony took like 15 minutes in 50 people capable room + 15 minutes time spent with guests, most of it outside.
I always liked the story of my friends who got married abroad and the whole ceremony was just signing the papers but I must admit it was great to see my family in that moment so I am happy they showed up.
Bride’s parents have CoVID (they live in another city no in-person contact with anyone who was present), so they stayed home and watched ceremony livestreamed, the same like my grandmothers (who are over 80).
And I don’t really regret not having the reception and a aprty if I needed that I would just postpone the wedding, like my friends did.
We made coronavirus tests in the week before (and we are able to stay away from other people most of the time) just in case, if we tested positive we would have cancel the wedding. Guests had masks all the time and families kept separate as much as possible (staying mostly in their social bubbles without intermingling) so the only people who were really at risk of being exposed were me and my wife – and we fell fine so far, so we probably managed to do it safe.
If you absolutely have to have a dangerous mass gathering like this during a worsening pandemic (spoiler alert: you don’t!), why not lean into it? Have fancy masks and gloves made in matching colours as part of the participants’ ensemble. Socially distance the guests. Have the entire ceremony outside at a venue where they are set up for sanitising everything. Have clinically vulnerable guests join via technology. Or, y’know, just wait until the whole thing is under control next year or the one after and put the party on hold?
My approach to all these things is, perhaps predictably, one of extreme caution. If it were up to me there would be no question of allowing any of these unnecessary things to happen in person until enough people were vaccinated. Gyms, hairdressers, pubs, shops that don’t sell food or medicine – all shut. The schools would all be operating online (why yes I am utterly exhausted by having had to drag myself in to teach in person under complex and not always effective safety precautions since September, can you tell?). An emergency tax on excess corporate profits (as was put in place during both World Wars in the 20th Century) would more than pay for tiding people over. I even shout at my brother for going out and walking his dog in public every day, rather than finding ways to exercise it round the house.
But other people have this strange idea that we should try to do everything we possibly can as close to normal as it can be done. Usually this involves finding out what regulations and limitations are in place and either trying to get round them (we can sell beer if we also sell “substantial meals”! A scotch egg counts, so let’s buy in packs of those to put on the bar!) or sailing as close as possible to the line. This frustrates me beyond words – the official advice and regulations aren’t a magic formula for safety, they’re a bare minimum and, on their own, mostly inadequate. Certainly no substitute for careful thought and a healthy sense of anxiety about one’s own and one’s neighbour’s safety.
I get the psychology behind some of it. People want to feel like they’re fighting back. Like they’re maintaining something like normal life in the face of overwhelming forces trying to stop them. They want apotropaic rituals and warding talismans to make them feel safe – we’ve stuck to the magic number of six or fewer guests! I’ve got a mask hanging round my neck, that will ward it away! But it’s a wedding, and weddings are special, surely that will exempt us from the rules. And, of course, a lot of them have people with power over them preventing them from doing the sensible thing in order to exploit their labour. Or more indirectly. And for some of them there is a genuine sense of pride in their own ingenuity in manipulating or getting round the rules.
I came across an example of this during the outoing term. The drama department where I work were discussing what to put on as the school play this year, and how it would have to be different. The sensible option would be “don’t do one this year, let it slide, do two next year if you absolutely have to make up for lost time”. But the whole “show must go on” mentality that infects so many around me took that option off the table. So, always keen to push the Classical agenda, I took the chance to interject and point out that ancient Greek theatre was traditionally performed outdoors, with everyone wearing masks and using at most eighteen performers. Oedipus tyrannos even begins with Thebes in the throes of a deadly pandemic and deals with themes of power and responsibility for the wellbeing of the people in the face of cruel fate – it could be made very relevant indeed. I was genuinely pleased with this little bit of manipulation, until I realised that the sensible thing to do would be to just call everything off.
People don’t take this approach consistently though. If it’s cold outside, people wear a coat. OK, I knew some people in college who showed off by toughing it out. But maybe the approach to extreme heat is a better example. Most people are more than happy to retreat into air-conditioning if it’s available.
When it comes to contagion, people don’t make it a point of pride to contract head lice or athlete’s foot. The interesting thing is that people aren’t trying to save their life. They just consider these things “icky.” Honestly, I don’t want coronavirus and at my age I’m not sure it would be a cakewalk, but I also consider it “icky.”
The fact that Trump’s inner circle has turned it into a viral baptism of sorts makes it even ickier. At the very beginning of this pandemic, I did rather stupidly pride myself on not getting sick much. Who knows? Maybe my immune system works very well. Maybe I just “social distance” so much out of personal habit that I am not picking up the same viral load as others. Maybe I’m just completely wrong. There was a time when I figured I’d probably be fine.
But right now, I would say that I would just be fucking embarrassed to get this virus even if I had very mild symptoms. I really don’t want the Trump baptism. I will behave as I have since March and stay virus-free (or try my best) until a vaccine is available to me (and even then until levels are low overall).
Artor,
Mom was a Mexican American from South Texas who raised me in Michigan. Surprise! Northern whites weren’t much better than Anglo Texans.
On Texas, I was in Austin once and liked it. I have also worked with people from different parts of Texas over the years, and they mostly seem fine.
I doubt I’d want to live there, but I don’t see it as a place I’d like less than the rural Midwest or Deep South, or Florida for that matter. I suspect there are several different Texas cultures that I would need to tease apart. It seems totally fitting to me that Plastic Jesus was written by a Texan (granted over 60 years ago). A coastal type might not bother with a religious parody at all, while a “salt of the earth” type would consider it disrespectful.