Tag: weddings

W is for Weddings

It appears that heterosexual marriage is doing a bang-up job of imperiling heterosexual marriage.


In November 2010, Pew Research reported that about half of all adults in the U.S. are married, down from 72 percent in 1960, while four in 10 people consider marriage obsolete. The Census Bureau added that American men and women are waiting longer before the wedding.

But from the Time magazine story concerning that Pew poll: “Americans still venerate marriage enough to want to try it. About 70% of us have been married at least once, according to the 2010 Census. The Pew poll found that although 44% of Americans under 30 believe marriage is heading for extinction, only 5% of those in that age group do not want to try to seek their own wedded bliss.

Sociologists note that Americans have a rate of marriage — and of remarriage — among the highest in the Western world.

The divorce rate, while down from its peak in the l970s, is higher in America than in most other countries. (And what IS the real divorce rate in the US?)

So I am filled with a cross between bemusement and incredulity at the notion, suggested by some, that the prospect of legalized gay marriages, or even civil unions, poses some sort of threat to heterosexual wedlock. It appears that heterosexual marriage is doing a bang-up job of imperiling heterosexual marriage.

(Arthur links here and here regarding his home state of Illinois’ new civil union law.)

Not incidentally, I got a form letter from my annuity company quite recently, adding the following proviso to my certificate:
“Pursuant to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), same-sex marriages currently are not recognized for purposes of federal law. Therefore, the favorable income-deferral options afforded by federal tax law to an opposite-sex spouse under Internal Revenue Code sections 72(s) and 401(a)(9) are currently NOT available to a same-sex spouse.”

So even in those states allowing same-sex marriages, those couples won’t be fully equal until DOMA is repealed.

Oh, BTW, you may be wondering whose wedding this is. It’s the nuptials for the Pakistani couple I mentioned a couple of months ago, which took place on Labor Day weekend. My daughter was in the wedding, but I pulled her photos solely for the purpose of posting them on December 26; I always write about Lydia on the 26th of the month.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

G is for Green Wedding

My father and sister sang at our wedding reception. I think I did too.


When I married Carol Powell on May 15, 1999, it was not only a blending of families, it was a mixing of family sizes. My family is very small, while hers is ginormous. Since both of my parents were only children, and all of my grandparents, by that point, were deceased, this was pretty much it on my side of the ledger: (L-R) my niece Rebecca, her mother/my sister Leslie, Carol, me, my mother Trudy, my late father Les, my niece Alexandria, and her mother/my sister Marcia.

Whereas my new wife had LOTS of relatives. My mother-in-law had seven siblings, my father-in-law two. My wife had three brothers and over 30 first cousins. I, of course, had no first cousins since I had no uncles or aunts.

So when they wanted a picture of my side of the family, you might wonder: who ARE all of these people? Most of these are direct descendants of my late great aunt Charlotte, the little woman in the front right of this photo above.

My mother’s mother Gert had three siblings that reached adulthood, but only one, Ernest, who married Charlotte, had children while my mother was growing up. So even though they were a decade or more younger than my mother, my mother’s first cousins by Ernest, who died back in the 1950s, and Charlotte, were the closest child relatives she had. And even though they lived in Queens, New York City, Charlotte’s grandkids were the closest child relatives my sisters and I had, besides each other, likewise 10 years or more younger than we were. Charlotte, BTW, was the sister-in-law of Professor Irwin Corey.

So the folks in the photo are one of Charlotte’s sons (and spouse) near the center of the photo, two of her granddaughters (plus a spouse), and a couple of her great-grandkids, along with the folks in the first picture. Whereas the picture on my wife’s side was a virtual mob scene by comparison.

This is the Yates side of the family that showed up at my niece Rebecca’s wedding to Rico in 2005. There was some difficulty between the bride’s mother and the groom’s mother, who wondered why the first cousin of the bride’s grandmother should be indicated in the program. As I described here, ultimately the extended family was listed, though the bride’s uncle, i.e., I, was inadvertently left off.


Oh, at Carol’s and my reception, my father and sister sang. I think I sang one song with them, Rebecca probably performed a number or two, and even niece Alex sang Yellow Submarine with her young cousins. Leslie also sang at the wedding.

I’ve been thinking a lot about weddings because my daughter is going to be in her first one this coming month, the Pakistani event of her babysitter, which will be an elaborate affair. More on that after the fact. If you’re also planning to tie the know with your soulmate soon, you’re probably already trying to find those tungsten wedding rings for him.

The website of niece Rebecca’s band, Siren’s Crush.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

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