Dating and mating among the elderly hardly raises an eyebrow anymore in many communities. In recent decades, the number of brides over 65 increased 42 percent. Documentary filmmaker Terri Randall takes a personal look at this phenomenon in a new HBO program called Daughter of the Bride. Still mourning the loss of their loving, devoted father Max, Ms. Randall and her siblings suddenly have to deal with this new man in their mother's life, his numerous children and grandchildren, and their upcoming wedding. Their feelings of joy, guilt, fear, and hope are jumbled together in a complex mass.
Pearl wrestles with unexpected questions, too.
Should she take down all the pictures of her and Max which blanket an entire wall of her home. Seymour, a widower who had been married 40 years himself, must pick his way at age 74 through a field filled with buried emotional land mines. Counseling needed Many of the middle-aged or elderly who have asked me to marry them have chaffed at the United Methodist requirement that there be some minimal counseling before they tie the knot. Watching Daughter of the Bride made me all the more certain that several counseling and wedding-planning sessions are needed in these cases. Pastors have begun to find ways to acknowledge the absence of parents of the bride or groom when marrying middle-aged couples.