Happily Ever After

I love fairy tale endings. I am a sucker for the 1997 television version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella featuring Brandy, Whitney Houston, and the incomparable Bernadette Peters. My daughters grew up with that version and we all watched it countless times. Pretty Woman, a different type of fairy tale, has my favorite glamour shopping scene in it. Who doesn’t love Julia Roberts owning Rodeo Drive? And The Princess Bride is simply one of the best movies ever. Apart from a treasure trove of classic quotes – Inconceivable! – the underlying theme of a young couple coming together from different cultures or stations in life and finding true love is heartwarming.

There is nothing like a fairy tale wedding! Remember, though, it really isn’t just the wedding that makes it a fairy tale – it is the promise of living happily ever after! No one sincerely attends a wedding hoping the couple doesn’t make it. Countless books have been written about how to have a successful marriage. Funny, my answer to that is the same general advice I have been giving when dealing with so many pandemic-related controversies: it’s not about you. In marriage, put the needs of your spouse above your own, emotionally, financially, physically. Love in word and deed.

I have been thinking a lot about weddings recently. My oldest is now engaged, and what was a vague prospect of a wedding one day is now an imminent reality. The institution of marriage has changed, though, since I got married.  

Recent data from the US Congress Joint Economic Committee shows that marriage rates hit an all-time low in 2018. Interestingly, the divorce rate actually has fallen by about 30 percent over the last 18 years, speculated to be the result of self-selection out of marriage. According to a 2018 Los Angeles Times article, marriages today have a greater chance of lasting than marriages did 10 years earlier. My generation (baby boomers) married quite young and divorced more (and continue to divorce at higher rates), whereas Generation X and especially millennials are being pickier about whom they marry (or not marrying at all), and tying the knot at older ages when education, careers and finances are on track.

Still, legal, financial, and emotional benefits of marriage – a healthy, lasting marriage, that is – abound. Health insurance benefits, IRA contributions, Social Security benefits, and potential tax advantages often favor marriage. Happily married couples live longer and suffer less from stress and depression.

The Knot Worldwide, self-described as the nation’s leading wedding marketplace and known in the US as www.theknot.com, published the results of a comprehensive survey of Americans married in 2017 that points out many ways marriage has changed over the years. They noted that ceremonies hosted in a religious institution have dropped from 41% in 2009 to 22% in 2017. The same thing holds true in England, where religious ceremonies accounted for 85% of marriages in 1900 but only 49% by the late 1970s and 23% in 2017. The Knot also notes that people are marrying at an older now (around age 30), the number of wedding guests is decreasing (now average 136), and the price per guest is increasing (now average $268/guest). The average wedding cost is now $33,391, excluding the honeymoon!

In our increasingly online society, another trend is notable (and given the sorry state of the US Postal Service, welcome): more couples are creating a personal wedding website (31% in 2017, up from 14% in 2014) and using an online RSVP service (28% in 2017, up from 7% in 2014). During the COVID-19 pandemic, online RSVPs became an essential way of tracking and notifying guests of last-minute venue changes, wedding instructions, or outright cancellations.

As couples are marrying older, the focus of weddings has become more on the guests, making memorable experiences for the attendees and reflecting the personality of the couple. But the fact that weddings are taking place in non-traditional venues does not mean that cultural and religious traditions are not reflected in the ceremonies.

Personally, the move of weddings away from religious buildings doesn’t necessarily bother me. When my wife and I got married, it was every bit the standard Southern Baptist wedding. The afternoon ceremony probably took no more than 20 minutes and we immediately retired to the church parlor for punch and cookies. We had to beg the church not to throw out the Christmas poinsettias until after our ceremony on December 28th because we couldn’t afford other flowers for decoration. There was certainly no sit down dinner, and no dancing or alcohol! Last December, we celebrated our 35th anniversary, so I guess it took. Honestly, hardly a day goes by that Catherine and I don’t tell each other how blessed we are. She truly is my soulmate.

Isn’t that what we want for our children – for them to find a lifelong companion, lover, and friend? Whether my daughters get married in a church or in a barn, at whatever age, I hope and pray they find their soulmate with whom they can grow old together, sharing the ups and downs of life, grateful for the blessing of life and love. The wedding celebration can be whatever they want it to be as long as the significance of the ceremony is not diminished, especially the solemnity of the commitment itself: "To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

In every generation, the fairy tale magic of love brings people together. That happily ever after part? It may take work, but as Whitney Houston and Brandy sang in Cinderella, “It’s possible!”