Oh, Fine: Anonymous Wedding Pictures

So Shannon and Shauna want to see wedding photos, and Shannon particularly wants to see the wedding shoes. Well, all right. I guess I can make things anonymous enough to suit my nature.

Here are our wedding outfits, which we did indeed wear to other people’s weddings:


I don’t think we would choose the same outfits if we were getting married now, but, you know, TEN YEARS AGO. We felt pretty cute at the time. Also: we look a lot taller with our heads on.

You can also see some of the parlor-type thing we got married in, because this photo was taken by our justice of the peace.

The shoes kind of blend into the carpet, but when I was looking through my journal for a photo that showed our outfits, I found a catalog clipping of the shoes I ordered:

These are the announcements [Edited: I edited the photo to make it more clear that this wasn’t my personal info]:


Before you think, “Hey, her real name is Janet???,” I will tell you that this is a photo of the sample announcement we got during the decision-making process. The announcement is white, embossed with white flowers. The writing was purple on the sample, but we ordered black.

Here is our car, decorated for our drive:

The end.

40 thoughts on “Oh, Fine: Anonymous Wedding Pictures

  1. hello insomnia

    That’s a beautiful dress for 1997, Swistle. We had a judge officiate our wedding and I loved it, especially now since we see him often on the news, presiding over murders and arson cases.

    Reply
  2. AndreAnna

    How in the hell am I first? Oh, that’s right. I have a sick baby and a wedding I am in tomorrow and CANT sleep because OHMIGODTHEREISOMUCHTODO! Like read blogs!

    Anyway, I love the announcements – and you decorated your car very cute. That’s one thing I regret not doing.

    We did, however, wear shirts onthe airplane to Hawaii that had fingers pointing at the respective spouses saying “Just Married Him/Her”

    Oh, so corny. But fun! And we got free stuff!!

    Reply
  3. Mommy Daisy

    Very neat. Loving the shoes. Like you said, perfect for 1997. You’re husband must be quite tall, because I know you are tall too. Although we can’t see the tops of either of your heads, so it is a little hard to tell. ;) The car is awesome. My sisters made a mess of our car. We drove it all week on our honeymoon, and we got people giving us the “aww” look the whole week. It was kind of fun though.

    Reply
  4. LoriD

    Awesome! We got married in ’97 too and I almost had the same invitation/announcement. In the end I chose something different, but I still love the embossed ones.

    Reply
  5. Mrs. M

    i love it! love it, love it, a million times i love it!

    do you still have the outfits and shoes?

    also, how did everyone react to the news? it was a surprise to them, right? what did they (paul’s mother especially) say? any parties or showers?

    when did you have your first kid in proximity to your marriage?

    Reply
  6. bananafana

    i love those shoes too! as in I would totally wear them right now.
    someone (coughbrotherinlawcough) thought it would be a good idea to decorate our white rental car with red lipstick . . . so we spent a fun chunk of our wedding night trying to scrub it off

    Reply
  7. Swistle

    Hello Insomnia- I just sent off a little note to our justice of the peace, and I’m a little worried he might be…D-E-A-D. He was probably in his 70s when he married us.

    LoriD- !!! That would have been so neat if we had the same ones! Now I feel like taking photos of all the other ones I considered: if we have similar tastes, maybe you chose one of our finalists! What did yours look like?

    Mrs. M- I still have the dress and the shoes, and Paul still has…well, he has the tie. The pants and shirt would blend in with the other things he has, so I THINK he still has them, but I’m not sure.

    We told a lot of people we were getting married that day, but it was a surprise to the people we weren’t in regular contact with. My co-workers threw me a shower. We flew to see both sets of parents after the wedding, and we had a reception (cake-and-punch) at Paul’s mother’s church (do you think having our reception in a church basement makes us Married In The Eyes Of The Lord?).

    Our first baby was born 14 months later–so I was pregnant on our first anniversary.

    Tessie- I KNOW. And I’m not. Janet didn’t get married until 1998, anyway, and she got married In The Eyes Of The Lord. I have a post in the works about how weird it is that our parents could have named us ANYTHING. My parents almost named me Theresa. THERESA! I CAN’T be a Theresa. Or a Janet.

    Reply
  8. Pickles & Dimes

    God, I totally panicked, thinking you forgot to blur out the names on the invite. I’m a dummy.

    I LOVE those shoes. Love, love, love.

    Thanks for posting a pic! I can still tell how happy and pretty you are from your 1/4 face. :)

    Reply
  9. Pickles & Dimes

    God, I totally panicked, thinking you forgot to blur out the names on the invite. I’m a dummy.

    I LOVE those shoes. Love, love, love.

    Thanks for posting a pic! I can still tell how happy and pretty you are from your 1/4 face. :)

    Reply
  10. Pickles & Dimes

    God, I totally panicked, thinking you forgot to blur out the names on the invite. I’m a dummy.

    I LOVE those shoes. Love, love, love.

    Thanks for posting a pic! I can still tell how happy and pretty you are from your 1/4 face. :)

    Reply
  11. Shannon

    Your name might not BE Janet but I might THINK of you as Janet from here on out.

    Cute shoes. I would have totally gone with something like that, too.

    I wore flip flops to my wedding.

    Reply
  12. LoriD

    Oh they were so pretty. They were the big, square extra postage jobs, white background with whimsical blue, purple and yellow flowers here and there around the border. Now I want to dig one out to scan!

    Reply
  13. Tessie

    I’m OK with you as a Theresa.

    Actually, the following is an inappropriate and possibly insulting list of names that I would like you to have:

    Sarah
    Beth
    Maggie
    Eliza
    Lynn
    Ann/Anna
    Caroline

    You’re welcome!

    Reply
  14. Brooke

    I like your shoes too! I wore wine-colored velvet All Stars with my new name embroidered on one and our wedding date on the other (converse.com). My tailor and my mother were horrified. Meh.

    Reply
  15. Jenny

    I like the name Janet.

    It makes me think of a cool woman I used to play rugby with and also Rocky Horror Picture Show.

    Just thought I’d throw Janet some props. Of course, being Jenny, I’d take anything else, just for a littel originality. My parent’s other choice was Lindsay. I’m not super crazy about that, but at least there wouldn’t have been 4 of us on a 12 person staff, like I had at my last job.

    What were we talking about again?

    Reply
  16. Swistle

    Caley- I loved your post! You and I are the same about weddings!

    LoriD- You HAVE to scan it. I have two samples in my finalists batch that meet that description.

    Tessie- That is the most fun comment I have ever received. I wonder if I could make other people guess my name, too, without having to say what my name really is? I like all the names on your list, and spent some time trying to decide which one was most like me, until suddenly I felt foolish.

    Brooke- Your shoes sound AWESOME. I LOVE that idea.

    Jenny- I know! It’s like 50% of the girls our age are Jens!

    Reply
  17. MrsGrumpy

    Beautiful pictures…even headless. My wedding day was perfect. We got engaged,married 4 months later with just us, the J o P, and our parents, brothers/sisters. I made my dress, hat/veil combo and his boutenierre (sp). I think you did what was exactly right for you. Of course, our marriage was Godless too… and I got all of the “you’ll be sorry you didn’t have a big wedding someday”‘s from people.

    Reply
  18. Shelly Overlook

    Am I the only one who thinks “Interplanet Janet, she’s a galaxy girl…” when I hear Janet? School House Rock rocked!

    You were a very lovely headless bride with the cutest shoes!

    Reply
  19. Farrell

    Tessie (and you) crack me up. i wanted to name my daughter “caroline” for a long time, but my ex has a cousin with that name so I couldn’t. I also wanted to name my future daughter “chelsea” for a long time, but then clinton ruined it for me. “celeste” was also a big one for a while, until my friends asked me if I wanted my daughter to be a stripper-hooker.
    I was going to be “colin” because my mom thought I was a boy.
    I guess we like “C” names.
    But I ended up with a daughter named “sophie” and I’m perfectly happy with that!

    Reply
  20. Meredith

    You look cute! I like the picture, the shoes look pretty and comfortable. Also, my stepmother drives a Camry that is the same year or near the getaway car vintage.wqlxbs

    Reply
  21. Swistle

    Meredith- Those Camrys last FORthehellEVER. We always had other Camry-drivers asking how many miles were on ours. Then they’d tell us how many were on theirs, and it would be, like, 250,000.

    Reply

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