Portrait by Venture Photography, Greenwich, CT
Grooms, too, naturally. Once again, we’re arriving at the month where weddings are “busting out all over just because it’s June, June, June!”.
Weddings, of course, cost money for somebody, usually the bride’s parents—the amount relative to the wallet and preferred level of fanfare. My marriage to Jack Moffly in Cleveland in 1959 was particularly special, since it had taken him thirty-three years to get up the aisle. I was a decade younger, and he told me he was marrying me for my potential. I could identify with Katharine Hepburn who once observed: “Spencer grew me up beyond my potential.”
But about our wedding: I still have Mother’s handwritten notebook with all the details.
It started with the engagement party for 100 in our apartment. One gregarious future usher stood at the front door of 2B introducing himself to each guest as “Tom Flood, Philadelphia”, so everybody thought I was marrying him. Another was Newbold Smith who mother kept calling Nouveau. The final bill including liquor, caviar, mushroom sandwiches and a family casserole for afterwards totaled $193.40.
Then came the ceremony on a rainy Saturday in July. The service was at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where $68 covered the organist, baritone, Sexton and candles. For the reception, The Country Club on Lander Road could accommodate 350 guests. Hough Caterers provided heart-shaped watercress sandwiches, lobster salad, petit fours with Orange Blossom Trim, a five-tier cake on a table draped in “newly-made chartreuse organdy, bouffant effect,” candelabra, baskets of rose petals and waitresses—all for $1,684. And the Hal Lynn Trio played from 6:15 to 10:15 for $100.
But I did get lots of mileage out of my wedding gown. It started as a diaphanous Grecian-stye cocktail dress in moss green chiffon with a satin cummerbund; but by special request, the designer made it floor-length in white for me. Later I cut it off and dyed the cummerbund green, then brown with black cummerbund, then gained weight and gave it to the Rummage Room.
Now fast forward five or six decades. A young friend of mine, planning her wedding for 150, made the rounds of local clubs and figured the reception at $220 a person, the band at $9,000, flowers $12,000 and photographer $6,700. Total: $60,700.
But that’s a mere bagatelle compared to Forbes list of the most expensive celebrity weddings. Among them: At Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach Donald Trump married Melania Knauss decked out in a Christian Dior gown with 300 feet of satin beaded with 1,500 crystals ($1 million). Tiger Woods and Swedish model Elin Nordegren took over an entire resort in Barbados plus, to thwart the paparazzi, the island’s only helicopter service ($1.5 million).
The eighth time Elizabeth Taylor wed it was to construction worker Larry Fortenski at Neverland Ranch with Michael Jackson walking her down the aisle ($2 million). And, when Liza Minnelli married concert promoter David Gest in New York, Michael Jackson was best man with Liz Taylor, maid of honor ($4.2 million).
And the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in Westminster Abbey reportedly cost $34 million; but $32 million of it was for security, so maybe that shouldn’t count. To save money, the royal lovebirds might have considered a fast getaway on their wedding present from the Mayor of London—a bicycle built for two.
That’s a wedding I’m sure will last. But divorces among those aforementioned celebrities does prove that money can’t buy love.
Anyway, with destination weddings the rage now, I wonder who picks up the tab for all that airfare? Hmmm.