1965 Wedding Photos

My parents are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary this year and I was drafted to design the invitations. And just in case you’re wondering, no, I’m not that old. My parents had already been married for several years when they had me.

In order to design the invitations, I also had to scan in some wedding photos. I can’t share the invitations yet, because my parents are paranoid about gatecrashers, but here are some wedding photos from 1965:

This photo was taken after the civil wedding. The suit is boring, but check out my Mom’s marvellous beehive hairdo, which supposedly took hours to do. The location seems to be the same building that still serves as the Bremen registry office 50 years later.

Here is a contemporary photo of the registry office.

And here is the official wedding portait. That marvellous beehive is back. The bouquet is quite interesting as well. According to my Mom, the dangling eight-shape were two small myrtle wreaths, myrtle being the traditional choice for wedding wreaths and bouquets in Germany.

My Mom told me that she modelled her hairstyle after the style that Princess Margaret had worn at her wedding to Lord Snowdon in 1960. Now Princess Margaret was certainly a breathtaking bride, though personally I don’t see many similarities beyond the beehive. And Princess Margaret’s looks more like a Modesty Blaise type topknot than a beehive.

The newly-weds are leaving the church. Mom and Dad seem happy enough, as do the blonde bridesmaid and the jolly looking priest. The two flower kids look considerably less than happy, as does the dark-haired bridesmaid.

This is the church in question BTW. The flower girl is my cousin Ulrike (who once told me she was a flower girl all the time and always had to wear the same dress), the flower boy was a neighbour’s kid named Joachim. The smiling blonde bridesmaid (Doesn’t she look just like Betty Draper? – shudder) is married to a cousin of my Mom. As for the darkhaired bridesmaid, no one even remembers her name. Apparently, she was the girlfriend of the best man or something and they broke up not long thereafter.

At midnight on your wedding day, they made you take off your veil and wear a nightcap instead. My Mom’s looks more like a swimming cap though, probably to accomodate the beehive. My Dad looks very silly and about twelve.

I have no idea what the reasoning behind the nightcap custom is, though it seems creepily reminiscent of relatives making sure you’re properly celebrating your wedding night. The nightcap is usually preceded by the bride having her veil literally ripped to shreds by the other guests for good luck. The veil ripping and nightcap wearing custom seems to have largely died out, because the brides hate it. Good riddance IMO, because it is a weird custom.