The Bionic Wedding

So have you heard about this? An Indian “tycoon” (I love that – journalism short-hand) paid 60 million dollars for his daughter’s wedding.

I felt myself get a little light-headed when I imagined being a bride at such an expensive wedding. “Expensive” really isn’t the word for it … “expensive” doesn’t even cover it!!

It reminded me of a wedding I went to, long long ago. And so now I will regale you randomly with the tale.

My first boyfriend had a very interesting background. He “came from” money – but his parents were hippies and alcoholics – with massive trust funds – and a lot of that money was squandered by the generation before him. Yet, he grew up surrounded by big money Newport people, with yachts, etc. However – he always had summer jobs, he bummed around with his skateboard, his parents were always living on the edge of complete and utter squalor.

I’m strictly middle-class. That’s my background. I didn’t grow up knowing rich people. Most of my friends growing up were middle-class, too. We would take field trips to Newport to gape at the mansions, so we knew, obviously, that there is massive wealth in Rhode Island – but it just wasn’t my crowd.

Suddenly, with the first boyfriend – I was introduced into that world.

I wasn’t always comfortable. It takes a bit of getting used to. At least it did for me.

People who knew about wines, and knew how to order them.

People who owned lots of toys. 6 mountain bikes in the garage – for one person. That kind of thing.

People who seriously discussed their decorating schemes, and were always suing their decorator.

This is another world for me. I don’t mean to sound like a little country mouse, but that was kind of the situation.

I felt intimidated.

Luckily, the first boyfriend had a healthy contempt for all of it, and he also had a wonderful sense of humor. (Has.)

One of his best friends from childhood (who I had met many times, and this man – this man-boy, really – was OUT OF HIS MIND. Like Robert Downey Jr. With unlimited amounts of cash. He never had to work. He had a pretend job. He was absolutely insane, and a lot of fun – I really liked him – for about 5 minutes at a time) – Anyway, he was getting married.

My boyfriend was in the wedding.

So, by proxy, I was involved in the entire thing. The rehearsal dinner, the wedding brunch, the wedding … It was 3 days out of my life. The whole thing happened in Newport. This is old old old money. The groom was old Newport money and the bride was old Texas money.

And so what ended up happening was: the two rich families ended up competing with one another, in terms of who paid the most for which event. There was no love lost between the 2 families. There was actually no love lost between the groom and the bride. I caught him, during one of the toasts made at the rehearsal dinner, give her a look of such contempt that it made me catch my breath. (They were divorced within 8 months.)

All of my outfits I had “borrowed” from the costume shop at the university where I went to school. I was terrified of what all those rich Newport and Texas girls woudl be wearing. So I “borrowed” a Jackie Onassis-inspired little black dress, and a black hat with a little veil – I “borrowed” a black alligator-skin purse. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up.

At the rehearsal dinner I was separated from my boyfriend, who sat at the bridal table. I cannot explain the WEALTH on display. It was out of control. But this is old classy money. Huge difference and (to my taste then) much more intimidating. And because I was separated from my rock, my anchor, I had no one to talk to – and I was sitting next to the sister of the groom – who apparently was an amazing artist but who had such intense shyness that she would literally begin to weep during conversations.

I am not exaggerating.

I tried to talk to her about her art. She sat there mutely. I wanted to put her out of her misery. In a good way. Let her know I was safe. But she was paralyzed with fear. I was a little girl playing dress-up, sitting at the New York Yacht Club. She was extraordinarily rich but couldn’t speak. We both were outsiders.

But we could not break through.

She began to weep maybe 2 or 3 exchanges into the conversation.

I gave up and then proceeded to get VERY DRUNK ALL BY MYSELF.

It was awful. I guzzled 4 glasses of wine in a 45 minute period, and then suddenly – voom – I was extremely drunk. I was like the Irish maid guzzling the wine in the rich people’s kitchen.

I sat in my chair. Afraid to move. I thought I would fall down if I tried to get up.

My boyfriend kept throwing me sympathetic glances across the room.

At one point, I mouthed, very very slowly, “I …. am …. waaaaaayyyyy … too drunk … right now…”

When you’re drunk, sometimes the truth comes out. Or sometimes you see things that otherwise you might gloss over.

I witnessed a moment between the bride’s mother and her 2 children which was so awful – so cold – that I felt frozen in my seat. I looked at her face and saw Satan. It was like East of Eden.

The bride and her brother had a big long gushy hug. They were siblings, and they were hugging. Whatever, it’s a wedding – completely normal.

I was very moved by it. I sat there, drunk, watching the hug, in a daze of tears.

I glanced directly at the mother – hoping to bond with her – to be the little supportive Irish maid – and I saw this look of absolutely stiff-jawed mortification at the display of emotion. Bride’s mother sat in her chair, she had her hand up against her chin, and …. Okay, here’s what I saw.

Even though it was a private moment between brother and sister (the rehearsal dinner had broken up into a party) – the mother was a TOTAL narcissist – and believed at all moments that all eyes were on her. So she FELT like everyone was looking at her. Second of all, she is obviously tremendously embarrassed by emotion, and she could not wait for the hug to end.

I heard her murmur, with this frozen smile on her face, “Break it up … break it up…”

You know who she looked like? That hilarious woman from Fish called Wanda who says, “Mr. Man-fran-gen-sen…”

That kind of emotional repression.

I was way too drunk, people. It was a wine-drunk, too. I couldn’t speak. I clutched my stolen alligator-purse. I felt a breath of cold wind flow over my drunken soul.

BREAK IT UP? You want to BREAK UP a loving embrace between YOUR TWO CHILDREN???

I just … my mind blanked.

My boyfriend, bless him, saw that something was happening with his girlfriend across the room. I must have looked a fright. He came over.

I tried to keep it together.

“Help. Me. Help. Me.” I hissed. “I am too drunk to be in public right now.”

“Okay. We’ll leave soon.”

“And I just saw something so horrible … so horrible … when I’m not so drunk, I have to do an imitation of it for you.”

(Later, once I sobered it up, I did the “break it up” moment for him, and it very quickly passed into folklore. He would make me do it for EVERYONE. “Do ‘Break it up’ Do ‘Break it up’!”

The wedding was a whole other nightmare.

The groom’s sweet pathologically shy sister had a nervous breakdown and NOBODY WAS SYMPATHETIC to her, NOBODY helped her – except for my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s beautiful brother. She was supposed to do a reading (which just goes to show you out of touch with reality this family was – you ask her to do a reading??? I’m a STRANGER and I know she would not be capable of that!!) So she did her best at the rehearsal, she walked up to the pulpit, but she literally was shaking so hard that you could hear the paper in her hand fluttering.

I felt … I wanted to stand up and scream STOP! I felt like I was surrounded by a bunch of lunatics!

She stood there for an interminable amount of time – and then – completely cracked – in front of the entire crowd – sobbing, sobbing into her hands.

I began to cry myself.

The second she started to cry, I saw “Break it up” lady shake her head disapprovingly, and turn to her husband and murmur, “I told you she wasn’t up for it.”

She wasn’t disapproving of the choice of the shy girl as a reader – she disapproved of the public-ness of the breakdown. She had contempt, as I said before, for emotion.

Shy girl’s family abandoned her up there. Nobody moved to help her. My boyfriend and his brother both broke out of the groomsmen line and walked over to her, and helped her away, sobbing. Later, I saw my boyfriend’s brother sitting with her – and he was such a sweetheart – so nice – he was one of the only people who get her talking about her art, about her life – she trusted him – and he even got her laughing about the breakdown.

The whole thing was a travesty.

And yet: because I am who I am: HIGHLY enjoyable.

People-watching!! It was rich rich stuff. (Rich, in terms of people-watching, and rich, in terms of the money poured into this wedding between 2 people who didn’t even like each other all that much!)

When the 3 day event was finally over, my boyfriend and I shrieked out of Newport in our Honda Civic, blasting Elvis Costello, and howling with laughter about all the lunatics. Thanking God we had escaped.

I have nothing against wealth, by the way. I’d like a little bit myself.

These people would be nasty no matter what their income.