Pressed against the soft, suffocating bosom of the American South, it's easy to forget who you are and how you got there. And to think that I had figured I was home free just because I made it out without ever being a debutante. In both the spirit of a Southern Belle primer and an intellectual inquiry into foreign cultures, allow me to sketch a brief landscape of the Louisiana wedding, circa summer 2001.
Gift registry is the harbinger of Southern wedding culture.
A Southern bride must register immediately after telling her best friends. A Southern bride, I soon learned, is not allowed to register alone. No, no matter how she tells them that she is keeping her name, that she and her beau have made this decision mutually, that she is a graduate student, still, she must be accompanied by a bridal consultant. This, of course, is in case you have really bad taste , my informants whispered to me. In the South, one leans in close and whispers only the most strategically select words.