Outdoor Wedding Party, American Midwest, 1950s

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Outdoor Wedding Party, American Midwest, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Outdoor Wedding Party, American Midwest, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-DC1BCC

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A wedding party has arranged itself on a lawn for the obligatory group portrait, the kind that in the 1950s required everyone to stand in a straight line and look pleasant for a duration that always lasted slightly longer than anyone was told. The groom is in a pale summer suit — the correct choice for a warm-weather outdoor wedding — while his best man holds the sartorial high ground in navy, the two of them wearing the boutonnières that confirm their official status in what will become a framed photograph on someone's mantelpiece for the next forty years. The bride, veiled and carrying red flowers, holds the groom's hand with the mild expression of a woman who has just successfully concluded several months of logistical effort. The maid of honour stands at the near edge in full-length mint satin, a colour that looked festive in the shop and photographs as pale green forever. The older men toward the left carry the slight awkwardness of people who were handed a hat when they arrived and have been unsure what to do with it ever since. The whole scene has the cheerful formality of an era that believed the reception photograph was, in fact, the proof that the marriage had occurred.

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