First-Class Weddings The Second Time Around

Ebony, June, 2000 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

GONE are the days when encore brides and grooms settled for second-class ceremonies when they remarried.

Sneaking off to Vegas and being married by an Elvis impersonator, or slipping down to the local city hall used to be the avenue of choice for the second-time bride. Not anymore. Nearly 46 percent of all weddings today involve one or both partners who have been married before, and it's difficult to tell from the attire whether the modern bride is marrying for the first or umpteenth time. In fact, modern brides who are lucky enough to find love again are trampling traditions underfoot like orange blossoms as they walk to the altar. At 18, their wedding was what their parents could afford. Now it's their taste and their budget. Their motto is: "This is the last time, and it's got to be the best."

"I knew that this was my last wedding, and this one had to be special," says Scarlet Pressley-Brown, referring to her marriage to Wendell Brown of Atlanta. Both had been married before, and they have five children between them. So what did they do? They were married before 200 guests aboard the Stone Mountain Riverboat Fen), in Stone Mountain, Ga. "We felt we had to have a formal ceremony to bring the children together and begin our new family," she says. Ironically, she was involved in two weddings at almost the same time--one of her daughters had gotten married two weeks before.

Second brides are the darlings of the wedding industry for three reasons: They are confident, they have more money to spend, and they know what they want. "They are in a different place than when they had their first wedding," says Lois Pearce, director of ethnic diversity for the Association of Bridal Consultants. "They may have different friendships, different business and social relationships, so what they would like to do is encompass all of this with their second marriage and their new lifestyle." Pearce, who is president of Beautiful Occasions, an event-planning firm in Hamden, Conn., says today's brides can remarry in style without a care. "I like to say if you know the rules, you can break them," she says. "Lifestyles have just become more laid back and so the rules that applied 50 years ago may not be acknowledged today."

When the Rev. Dr. Millicent Hunter, pastor of the Baptist Worship Center, in Philadelphia, married Marino Hunter, their wedding was a lavish affair. There were more than 700 guests, including the full church choir, and the bride strolled down the aisle in an off-the-shoulder white satin gown with French Alencon lace and a 12-foot-long cathedral train. The headpiece for her waist-length veil was heavily encrusted with pearls and rhinestones. "A wedding is a celebration of love, and I think that when you really have a person you love, you should not think for one moment that maybe I shouldn't go overboard," she says. The bride, who is "on the comfortable side of 40" and has two children, shopped for more than six months, trying on at least 75 gowns before choosing the very first gown that she tried on. She chose white for her second wedding because, "white symbolizes commitment and faithfulness, so that's why I chose a white gown as opposed to some other color." Hunter says marriage is better the second time around and her groom "is a wonderful father and the kind of husband that every woman prays for."

Harriet Cole, author of How to Be, an etiquette book for African-Americans, and Jumping the Broom says there used to be a slight element of shame attached to second weddings. "On a very subtle level there was a little bit of shame attached to making it a big extravaganza," she says. "I don't think that there are prohibitions on the size of the wedding or the type of clothing people are considering these days." She plans to update her classic Jumping the Broom wedding planner to incorporate some of these changes.

Brides have felt pressured to scale-down repeat nuptials with fewer guests, less "bridey" gowns, and the elimination of blush veils, long trains and orange blossoms--all symbols of virginity. Second-time brides today are ignoring these taboos and striving for an elegant look. "I actually find that the second-time bride has a very simple elegance," Pearce says. "She is seeking dresses that are tailored rather than poufy--that have style and are made of quality fabric." Brides who choose an Afrocentric wedding, a very popular choice for first- and second-time African-American brides, "want something that has come from Africa or the finest quality of fabric they can get here in the United States."

Debra and John (Jackie) Williams of Venice, Ill., chose an African-inspired theme for their wedding. "He wanted an Afrocentric wedding and I always wanted a rainbow wedding; so we combined both," says Debra Wicks-Williams. Her white silk dress was hand-beaded with thousands of iridescent sequins and was custom-made from fabric imported from Africa. Her groom's four daughters served as attendants, and their rainbow-colored attire was also created with imported African fabric. She says they planned the wedding for a year. Experts say planning the second wedding falls into two categories, 12-18 months or relatively short periods for brides who know exactly what they want.