Wacky Wedding News

There were some crazy wedding articles around the web over the past week. Here's a quick round-up.

On Sunday the Seattle Times reported that a wedding crasher, Pamela McBride (yes, that’s actually her name) was sentenced to 45 days in jail for stealing wedding gifts, including gift cards, and checks. Apparently McBride would crash weddings and then help herself to parcels on the gift table. The Spokane, Wash. resident ran into trouble last summer when she bumped into a former classmate at a wedding. He happened to be an off-duty police officer and he noticed that McBride was nervous and acting suspiciously. When the bride and groom noticed that they were missing presents, they contacted the police and the officer was able to put them on McBride’s trail. They tracked her down through the gift cards that she used, which were from Macy’s, Home Depot and Costco. Former victims of McBride’s sticky fingers were contacted and the police were able to reimburse some of them.


At least Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson didn’t steal from your wedding!

The NY Post reported that Brooklyn couple, Michael Dvorkin and Ambre Brandis, have filed suit over a broken air-conditioner at their 2008 Manhattan nuptials. The couple got married at 632 on Hudson and apparently the downtown-cool location was swelteringly hot, causing the couple and their guests to become drenched in sweat. The couple complained that they were unable to have a “public wedding album” because all their photos were of people with “red and puffy faces” and “wet and wrinkled” clothes. They are seeking $50,000 for emotional distress.
What a crazy story! I feel bad for the couple but I was surprised to learn that they had taken legal action, until I read that they are both lawyers :). Then it made more sense.

I’m willing to bet this isn’t the look you are going for at your wedding.

Yesterday British web site, wedding-news.co.uk reported that an elephant which was hired for an extravagant Indian wedding between the children of two New Delhi- politicians, escaped from the ceremony. The male elephant went on a six-hour rampage, chasing after a female elephant in-heat and causing $320,000 in damages. The elephant charged through wedding guests, crashed into a shopping center, overturned vehicles, and trampled on 20 limos, before being shot with a tranquilizer.



Elephants are not unusual at Hindu weddings as they are considered extremely lucky in Hindu culture. The poor couple! What an awful way to start your lives together.

Thoughts on these crazy stories?

Child Marriage in Rajasthan

This weekend The Irish Times ran a story about child marriages in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Apparently the Rajasthan government recently decided to register all marriages, including child marriages and activist groups there are worried that this will encourage child weddings.

The article explains that while the origin of child weddings isn’t known, it is believed to date back to the 10th century. Child marriages are apparently an “open secret” in Rajasthan. The legal marital age in India is 18 for females and 21 for males, making all child weddings illegal, so it is absurd that they would even consider registering them. The article explains that single women are given the lowest status in communities which practice child marriages, so one of the reasons why parents decide to marry their infant daughters is to ensure that they don’t remain unwed as adults. Another reason the article posits for infant weddings, is that all brides are required to have silver bracelets and anklets and since children have smaller wrists and ankles than adults, it costs less to provide them with the necessary jewelry.

Reading this article was so depressing. The thought of children as young as two being married is horrible. In some cases the child brides are married to child grooms, and while this is obviously still an infringement on their human rights, this seems slightly less horrific as they are allowed to live with their parents until they reach puberty. The accounts of child brides being married to adult men who force them to consummate the marriage when the bride is only 15, are far more appalling.

I obviously knew child marriages still existed but I hadn’t thought about them in some time, so this article was a sobering reminder. I posted about the archaic, sexist origins of some wedding traditions a couple of days ago and I commented on the disparity between the violent history behind some weddings and the modern concept of the wedding being all about the bride. It was important to remember that in some parts of the world, things have not changed as much as we would like.