I want to thank Billie and Buddy Blair for letting me scan the following photo. It shows Bertha Blair and Nick Phillips on their wedding day in the late 1940s. (I'm not certain of the exact date.) From left to right you see Mr. Blair (father of the bride), Beanie Blair Petrosky (sister of the bride and matron of honor), Nick Phillips (groom), Bertha Blair (bride), Rufus Phillips (best man), and the minister at Sugar Land's First Methodist Church.
Buddy told me his father made the candelabras you see in the background.
I don't know how typical they were, but I know several couples in that era married at the home of the bride's parents. My parents married at my grandparents' home at the Humble Camp, as did my aunt and uncle.
I've read the average wedding today costs nearly $24,000. Stories about bridezillas are fairly common. Of course, there were extravagant weddings back then, but they weren't typical of Sugar Land.
