November 5th is a special day for me. I have been married to my wonderful husband for 5 years! Because of this, I've been reflecting on my marriage and seeking out stories regarding weddings.
One of the articles I came across was the wedding of Janis Jean Albaugh of Romeo and Gary Dean Carver of Washington that The Romeo Observer Press covered in great detail in their November 12, 1959 issue. The bride can be seen in the photo above.
Janis and Gary got married in an afternoon double ring ceremony at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Saturday, October 17, 1959. This was when the church was still on East Newberry Street before the 1960 fire. It was performed by Canon Leslie G. Warren of St. Paul's Cathedral in Detroit in front of 200 guests. Janis was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Albaugh, and Gary was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Leon Smith. James gave his daughter away.
Like the previous weddings I've talked about, it goes into great length about the bride's wedding dress. For the ceremony, Janis wore "a peau de soie gown fashioned with a circle neck-line, the yoke of re-embroidered Alencon lace accented with seed pearls."
And, that's not all. The article added, "The long sleeved bodice buttoned down the back to a butterfly bow from which extended a chapel train. A tiara crown of pleated tulle accented with seed pearls held her fingertip veil of scalloped silk illusion. She carried a prayer book to which was fastened a white orchid, pompoms and greens and around her neck on a chain the bride wore a single pearl, a gift from the groom."
Many of those elements like the dress, tiara, veil, and necklace can be seen in the picture above.
As for the flowers, the story describes them as, "two vases of gladioli, Fiji mums, pompoms" on the altar "with green palms, two baskets of gladioli, Fiji mums, pompoms, and greens" on the lower altar.
The guests came from Chicago, Lansing, Detroit, Pontiac, Marshall, Big Rapids, Warren, Mount Clemens, Berkley, Lake Orion, Grosse Pointe, Highland Park, Utica, Washington, and Romeo.
Mrs. C.D. Ferrel of Warren was Janis's sister and matron of honor, and niece Deborah was the flower girl. The bridesmaids were Suzanne Lyons and Nancy Ojala. Gary's uncle Maurice Parrott of Washington was his best man. The ushers were James Wright of Napanee, Indiana and Charles Readle.
The story also covered what the bridesmaids and mothers wore. As the matron of honor, Mrs. C.D. Ferrel doned a rust colored velvet street length dress with "a circle neckline which dropped to a V in the back."
Bridemaids Suzanne and Nancy wore gold colored dresses like the honor matron's. All bridal attendants had a "velvet bow with veil headpieces, shoes and gloves [that] matched their dresses and each carried a basket of pompoms and daisy mums in gold and rust shades contrasting with [Janis's] dress."
Mrs. Albaugh was dressed in a blue-green lace sheath dress "with which she wore oyster white accessories" with a corsage of baby orchids
Mrs. Smith - the groom's mother - wore "a deep green silk sheath dress with copper accessories" with the same corsage.
The reception took place at the Romeo Youth and Civic Center. Janis and Gary traveled to the Upper Peninsula for their honeymoon and soon made their home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This was where he was a technician for Johnson's Control Limited at the time. He later became a sales engineer and worked there for over 40 years.
The couple would go on to have two sons, but they divorced at some point. According to Gary's 2011 obituary, he remarried in 1981. Janis retained her married name and passed away in 2014.
Although the marriage didn't last, weddings like this one show readers the fashions of the time and what was it like on the day. We're also lucky that the newspaper took a picture of Janis in her bridal gown the day she got married.
To see more wedding articles and photographs, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890. If you want to search for articles on that topic, you can find the Romeo newspapers like The Romeo Observer on the Suburban Library Cooperative's Local History Digital Collection website.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer Press, November 12, 1959, p.A-2 and The Romeo Observer, March 30, 2011, p.2-A and July 23, 2014, p.2-A