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Herb Benham: N.Y. frou-frou wedding not so different from Bakersfield affair
| Wednesday, Jun 18 2008 5:46 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jun 19 2008 1:46 PM
Bakersfield weddings have been in the news lately. It’s made me think again about wedding announcements and what a window they can be into the life of a town.
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Take the ones from the Sunday New York Times. The following wedding announcement was lifted from a recent Sunday Times. Imagine how it might read if bride and bridegroom were from Bakersfield. First, the New York version.
“Meg Bowman Berte and Larry Wesley Owen II were married Wednesday in a ceremony performed by the Rev. Gabriel Gillen at St. Catherine of Siena Church in New York.
“On Saturday, Thomas Berte, a brother of the bride, led a celebration on the beach in Playa Carmen, Mexico (no doubt the couple shed their shoes for the occasion). They met at Harvard Business School, from which they both received M.B.A. degrees (anything less would have been a disappointment).
“Mrs. Owen, 36, is an investor relations manager at Moore Capital Management, a hedge fund in New York. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
“Her father is a lawyer specializing in workers comp law.
“Mr. Owen, 35, is a senior associate who analyzes credit for midsize companies at Patriarch Partners, a distressed debt and private investment fund in New York.”
No, I’m not making this up and, yes, almost every announcement shares this sort of pedigree. It’s the sort of pedigree that makes you want to fudge on your own resume.
It reminds me of something Buck Owens said once: “If I had your money, I’d burn mine.”
Assume, for a moment, that Ms. Berte and Mr. Owen had been from Bakersfield. Here is how the same wedding announcement might have read.
“Meg Brandi Berte is a proud graduate of BHS and Actis Junior High School, where 23 members of her family demonstrated their enthusiasm for Ms. Berte by blowing air horns.
“Some of the crowd present disapproved, but Ms. Berte’s family believes in celebrating the small things and wonders why anyone would begrudge them that pleasure.
“Ms. Berte’s family includes three older brothers, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-great-grandparents.
“Suffice to say, there is an abundance of people both to love and be loved by.
“Mr. Owen graduated last year from South High School, and is presently a plumber’s helper. It may not sound fancy, but when your clean-out valve needs cleaning out, try calling a hedge fund manager.
“Mr. Owen’s father was a plumber too. Plumbing is honest work and if it was good enough for his father, Mr. Owen thought it might be just fine for him too.
“Ms. Berte is training to become a cosmetologist, but before you pass judgment on hairdressers, remember that hairdressers make a heck of a good living, especially when their clients include men and women with Ivy League educations.
“I guess what we’re saying is that when it comes to marriage, it’s a big world, but really, we’re not so far apart.
“Bakersfield or New York. Each are rich with possibility.”
The opinions expressed here are those of Herb Benham, not The Californian.