Wedded bliss not rooted in china, silver

Weddings have changed a lot since the day nearly 51 years ago when I stood next to my betrothed in a Bloomington jewelry store trying to act interested in crystal goblets, sterling silver tableware and delicate china dishes.

I had grown up drinking from glasses that once had been jelly jars. Dishes were Melmac — a plastic so hard you could drop a plate of mashed potatoes from a 30-foot ladder onto a concrete floor without a chip. The “silverware” was stainless steel and mostly had come to our kitchen table a place-setting at a time via S&H Green Stamps, awarded as premiums at the grocery store and the gas station.

My bride, however, had been born into a more lofty social environment. While her parents had no more money than mine, her father was a United Methodist minister.

The “parsonage family” in such a mainline denomination often mixed with congregants who had actually eaten food from china dishes. Family members could look at a dinner plate surrounded by up to nine pieces of silverware and not sweat. (However, her 11-year-old brother had been banned from the table when guests were invited — for eating everything with a single spoon gripped tightly in his fist and used like a shovel.)

So there I was — in a jewelry store, registering for wedding gifts that would raise my social status.

When the gifts were all toted out of the church basement the day after our wedding, my wife and I discovered a serious shortfall. We had five-and-ahalf place settings of Noritake china, three sets of Signet sterling flatware and five crystal goblets.

Since our dining room furniture consisted of a card table with one wobbly leg and three folding chairs, we were equipped for a formal dinner party for four — if one guest stood and a second guest ate with his or her hands.

Not to fear, we thought. In no time at all, we would have enough combined salaries to complete our formal table service — as well as to buy a suite of furniture for the dining room we didn’t have.

First we would need to pay off my considerable college debts, work a car payment into our budget and reimburse my mother for the security deposit she put down on our apartment.

Two years later, while we were still living checkto-check, our son showed up, followed 22 months later by our daughter. Formal tableware turned out to be plastic kiddie bowls — with suction cups on the bottom to make them stick to the table — and “Tommee Tippee Sippy Cups” that could be tossed on the floor without damage, just like Mom’s Melmac.

Twenty-five years later, no additional silver, china or crystal had been added and no occasion had surfaced requiring a formal dinner party for four, with one person eating with his or her hands. Eventually, all those items the world convinced us were needed for a happy marriage were sold or given away.

Now past our 50th anniversary, we are a bit jealous every time we receive a wedding invitation from the grandchild of a friend, along with a link to a website with gift suggestions. Instead of listing much-needed formal dinnerware, most newlyweds seem to be going for video games, pizza coupons and movie passes. One couple even had a hot-airballoon ride on their list.

I imagine eating pizza in a balloon gondola would bond a marriage in a way that hauling around unused dishes for decades never could.

Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007.