Bob & Joyce

My family is Catholic. Extended, serious, give money and land, send your seven kids to Catholic school, full out mass Catholic. Since they came over from Germany, and settled in a Catholic farm community.

DJ and I will not be having a Catholic wedding. Simple eight-minute lakeside ceremony is our style. I'm a recovering Catholic. But I appreciate the traditions and customs that are reflected in my grandparents wedding ceremony photos.

(DJ: Dress photos ahead. Proceed at your own risk.)

Check out this photo of everyone walking into the church. In the photo are the Best Man (whose name I don't know), the Maid of Honor (sister of the bride) Pat, (grandpa) groom Bob, bride Joyce, and Joyce's father Leo. Double breasted suits. Sharp haircuts. The photographer must have used a flash, since you can see the glare reflected in eye glasses in the background. The house is packed since people are in the choir loft. All of the women are sitting on the right, with their hair covered. A number of nuns in attendance.

Full Catholic mass, with communion. Check out the little caps the bridesmaids are wearing to cover their heads. The little pseudo-gloves the bridesmaids are wearing (wrist warmers?)

Grandma attended the Notre Dame Academy, a private girls Catholic high school in Colton which was very short lived. But she finished school in the spring of 1951 and married, at 17 years old, that fall. This is her placing her boquet at the shrine of the Virgin Mary.

And look at this. St. Gall parish in Colton, before Vatican II simplified the Catholic chuch and stripped much of the decorative elements from inside. The lights. The pulpit (which I don't remember). The side altars, which my grandpa Bob rebuilt in 2000. The balustraude. How few people in attendance my grandpa had.