The music will be classical and so will the setting at this summer`s wedding of Laurie Bell and Bradley Opland. Like so many others marrying in the `80s, Bell and Opland have chosen to stride down the aisle of tradition
–with all its elaborate trappings.
The setting for the wedding, for example, will include ”something old, something new.” The prospective bride and bridegroom have been told that theirs will be the first wedding in 87-year-old Orchestra Hall. They chose the location because of their shared love of music. Bradley is a bass player in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Laurie, who has returned to university studies after working for several years, is the daughter of Lawrence Bell, former owner of Lawrie`s Records. The couple met in the record store. As in many families, Bell`s father will be host at the wedding.
Of course, expensive ”society” weddings will always grab the headlines.
Two years ago, for example, publishing magnate John Johnson gave a six-figure wedding–24 attendants, 700 guests–for his daughter, Linda, and her bridegroom, Andre Rice. In 1986, the wedding of Rockefeller heiress Abra Prentice Anderson and Jim Wilkin featured a private reception at the tony Casino club, with an orchestra flown in from New York.
EVERYBODY`S DOING IT
But it isn`t just the wealthy who are choosing pomp, ceremony and elegance. Brides and grooms at every economic level are doing so–sometimes despite basic impracticality.
And no one seems to give much thought to the unpleasant fact of divorce:
In 1986, 4.8 per 1,000 marriages ended in court, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A bureau report has found that ”the total number of divorced persons has continued to increase more rapidly than the total number of married persons.”
Still, optimism reigns among the marrying kind. Ask couples why they opt for the formality and expense of a traditional wedding and the answers are similar to Laurie Bell`s. The formal clothes, sit-down dinner and multi-tiered cake symbolize blissful hope: ”We intend for our marriage to last.”
A recent formalwear study by Modern Bride magazine indicated that 81.5 percent of the 2.5 million couples married in 1986 planned formal weddings.
Finance columnist Andrew Leckey, writing recently on wedding costs, reported that Gerard J. Monaghan, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants, said the $2,500 average wedding cost of five years ago has escalated into the $8,000-to-$11,000 range.
Nancy Youngbeck, Modern Brides` promotions manager, places the figure slightly lower, but said it`s hard to calculate because ”it depends on whether the wedding is in a small town or large city, the style of wedding attire, number of guests, type of reception and so on.”
MARRYING STATUS
For some parents, an upscale wedding may be a status symbol. Or it may be a gift they`ve looked forward to giving their daughter. Some parents designate part of their savings for their daughter`s wedding, or share costs with the bridegroom`s family.
With many couples waiting longer to be married nowadays, wedding expenses may be paid by the bride and bridegroom. Young commodities brokers and their equally well-off fiancees may have more disposable income than their parents. For them, wedding costs are a piece of cake.
For the less financially blessed, however, even a comparatively modest formal wedding can mean deferring saving for a home purchase–or even going into debt for the sake of one storybook day.
”Over a period of three years,” said a young Chicago woman in her mid-20s and married a year and a half ago, ”it seemed that whenever we thought we had enough money saved for our wedding, it would be spent for something else. Finally, we thought, we`re at a time in life when we want to be married. Even though we can`t afford it, we`ll have a wedding. It was the fulfillment of a girlhood dream of mine.”
She and her fiance went to a loan company and borrowed $1,500, interest included, over two years, to add to $400 they had saved. They also took a wedding trip, using their credit cards to shop while vacationing.
”The payments of $95 a month on the loan sounded manageable,” she said, ”but we made a mistake in not correctly estimating our day-to-day living expenses and finance charges on the credit card purchases. We got behind with one creditor and we`d have to make a double payment; then we`d be behind with another creditor. It was eight or nine months before we had things under control again.”
But even this sadder-but-wiser wife said she and her husband look back joyfully upon their wedding: ”We wanted the day to be memorable, and it was. And we learned a lot from the borrowing experience. No longer does one of us do all the record-keeping so that a late notice comes as a surprise to the other. On budgeting, we`re working now as a team.”
BEST-LAID PLANS
Sometimes weddings expand in concept from the moment the engagement is announced. Laurie Bell recalled that the guest list she and her fiance compiled initially numbered 150.
”But I have a large family, and we wanted to invite our friends, too, so it became a bigger number,” she said.
As now planned for this month, CSO Symphony musicians and vocalist Virginia Croskery will perform Bach`s Wedding Cantata and Handel`s ”Let the Bright Seraphim” at their ceremony in the symphony hall`s ballroom, flower-bedecked for the occasion. The 250 guests then will sip cocktails in the foyer and on the stairs while Ferre-Florsheim caterers set up the ballroom for dinner. A jazz ensemble will play at the reception.
Of her father, the host, Bell said, ”Like most fathers of the bride, he`s not overly concerned about the details. But we`re doing more or less everything we wanted to do in planning our wedding, and he agreed to it.”
”We thought first about having our wedding aboard the Clipper,”
recalled Mary Beth Santucci White, who married Bill White on May 9. ”That would have been very informal. My mother and I laughed later about how formal it eventually became. I`m the only girl among six children, and my parents wanted the wedding to be classy. When would we have this kind of opportunity again?”
In the course of things, Mary Beth, who sells occupational therapy equipment, and Bill, a food broker, decided on an early evening ceremony at St. Vincent de Paul Church, followed by a reception for 200 at the Chicago Athletic Association.
Mary Beth`s father, John Santucci, a manufacturer`s representative, and mother, Mary Ann Santucci, a travel agent, gave the wedding. Mrs. Santucci arranged the newlyweds` honeymoon trip to St. Martin as well.
”I think my dad had always thought about this,” Mary Beth said. ”Bill and I suggested that we pay half the expenses, but my parents said they wanted to do this for us.”
”It`s just the importance of the whole day,” said Bill in explaining why they altered their original plan for the more casual wedding on the lake. ”We wanted this day to be grandioso.”
UNHAPPY ENDINGS
What of the person whose wedding is fireworks and balloons but whose marriage quickly fizzles?
Donnalear Robinson Burns was married first in 1978 in a $30,000 extravaganza that included a fog machine that produced ”a romantic, fairy-tale” aura, Burns recalls. Her parents, in business on the South Side, had wanted to give their only daughter a spectacular sendoff.
But the marriage lasted only a year. And nearly five years ago, when Donnalear married Florida ”Buck” Burns, their wedding took place before a judge in City Hall, after which the happy couple went out to dinner.
”At the time, I didn`t want another large wedding,” said Mrs. Burns.
”But now I would do that again, because I would enjoy it better now. I`ve thought about having a big party for an anniversary–not our 5th, but perhaps the 10th.”
Did the expense of the wedding slow her decision to get the divorce?
”Yes, I gave it some consideration,” she said. ”But that shouldn`t stop anyone from getting out of a bad situation. My parents supported my decision.”
Parents often are extremely generous in supporting their children`s wedding wishes. They figure it goes with the territory.
Robert and Linda Mendelson, for example, had Ronsley florists create a lush pastel satin and candlelight ambience for the April wedding of their daughter, Deborah, and David Ponn in the Standard Club.
”Our daughter always wanted to `walk down the aisle` at the Standard Club, where her father and I also were married,” said Mrs. Mendelson. ”This is the way we knew how to give her that.”
William and Mary Ryan of Hinsdale opened their home two years ago to 450 guests at the wedding of their daughter, Eileen, and her husband, Scott Seyfarth. And they will do so again this summer for the wedding of another daughter, Mary, and Robert Buddig.
BACK TO VALUES
At-home weddings are very personal, but also expensive because everything –from flowers to dessert forks–must be brought in. The Ryans, however, believe they emphasize family values.
”We put so much effort into the weddings because we feel that these marriages will last,” said Mary Ryan. ”I don`t feel that you can go into marriage being negative. As with most things, the more positive you are, the greater your chance for success with it. We have spent a lot of time teaching our children the value of commitment. They are committed to their careers. Things we have advised them to do they have done. We spend a lot of time with the young people who are joining our family. We think that they, too, want that commitment. We hope we set the example for them.”
A wedding should be fun, too, of course, and a big wedding, if the principals are party animals, can be the essence of ”the more the merrier.” Myra and Roger Risher gave one wedding reception at Lake Forest Academy for their daughter, Laura, and her husband, John Brinckerhoff, and another wedding reception at the Shoreacres Club for their daughter, Meg, and her husband, Dale Tallon. Both were married at St. Mary`s Church in Lake Forest. Guests numbered 250 at one, 200 at the other. Meg changed her wedding date to assure the participation of John Reilly of Stuart-Rodgers-Reilly, the family`s favorite special-occasion photographer.
Has Lisa, the third Risher daughter, expressed any wishes regarding her own potential wedding celebration?
”Oh,” said her mother, ”she and Stan Paul (whose orchestra played at her sisters` weddings) already are making plans: Holy Name Cathedral and Navy Pier!”
The formal wedding simply is not for everyone. Some couples don`t want one. Others of limited means are too practical to plunge into debt for one. However the wedding takes place, its external adornment, said Deborah Mendelson Ponn`s mother, ”is only the cover of the book. You do what you want to do and are able to do.”
The Mendelson-Ponn edition may have been elegantly bound, but, said Mrs. Mendelson, ”none of it was as important as the friends who came in from all over the country to celebrate with our families.” —
