You just made me feel old…
My mother is 90.
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I haven’t had to wear a suit in close to a year. And apparently 15 pounds.
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My parents got married when they were 19 and I was born when they were 21. My grandma was 16 when she got married, my grandpa had been drafted and they wanted to get married before he left so actually drove to a neighboring state where they could get married. Her parents didn’t know she was married until he got home. But that got them off to an early start too.
So my family kind of squeezed in an extra generation.
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Funny story…
Years ago, my cousin who was more like a sister got married and the family all came together in Houston for the wedding. We went out to eat at the amazing restaurant the night before.
The next day, my parents were late to the wedding. My cousin would not let it start until they got there. Sitting up with the family in the front pews started getting very uncomfortable when, at last, my parents come rushing in and slide into their seats cuing the organist to start playing. My dad whispers “Sorry we’re late-we had to stop at JCPenney for pants. I couldn’t get my pants buttoned or zipped”. DH said, “you should’ve tried them on before you packed them.” My dad replies “I did! They fit fine yesterday afternoon!” Omg. He had eaten so much the night before, he couldn’t get his pants on the next day. We have NEVER let him forget that!!!
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@buuzn03 - funny story! I can relate!
Years ago we flew to a wedding of one of DH’s best friends in Parrhump Nevada (middle of nowhere). Picked up DH’s pants from the dry cleaners on the way to the airport, morning of the wedding. Just shoved them into a suitcase. Got to the hotel, with barely time to change.
DH pulled out the pants from the bag, and they were not his pants. They were the biggest pants you have ever seen - whomever they belonged to had to have been close to seven feet tall and almost as wide. The pants were made out of the worst polyester. DH had the sweatpants he was wearing as the only alternative, and iirc, he had spilled something on them.
He wore the big pants.
That wasn’t even the craziest thing about that wedding. Good times…
Please tell us there was an Art Bell sighting! (That’s all I know about Pahrump.)
Sorry to say, no. It is the only time I have ever been to Pahrump. I think it is also famous for a brothel. His friend married Miss Pahrump, who was 7 months pregnant at the time, but it was not his friend’s child. Shall I go on? There’s more.
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@dadof4kids , hoping so much that your grandmother would have delighted in your pants dilemma and wardrobe choices.
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Please do!
(Although it is sad that Art Bell wasn’t a wedding guest.)
No slight intended, but Pahrump is not a very wealthy place. At the time it was mostly mobile homes in the middle of a desert. The wedding was in a temporary building that doubled for a church. After the services, we were enjoying the modest reception in a nearby community center, nibbling on sandwiches, DH in the big pants, and started hanging out with the minister. Somehow we got on the topic of schools (we were still in grad school), and the minister said he went someplace we would never have heard of - Brown University. Now, again, no slight intended, but that was waaaaaayyyy not what we expected.
The after party moved to an aunt’s home. We were hanging out on the couch when the aunt brought out her photo album. About the brown recluse bite she survived. She had a bright pink t-shirt made up, that she changed into, that said “I survived a brown recluse bite!” And she had the hospital pics, that I can’t unsee, to prove it.
We left to go back to the hotel around 2:00am, and had an early flight out of LV. The bride and groom needed a lift to the airport for an even earlier flight, so we drove them. They were honeymooning in Disneyland. There are slot machines throughout the airport. DH put a couple of quarters into one of them and won $300. Which he gave over to his friend for the honeymoon. Best ending to the best wedding ever.
DH kept the big pants.
Eta: DH just reminded me: he was wearing shorts at first. Because summer. In the desert. And the big pants had no belt loops. Oh, and the air conditioning was broken in the community center.
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Although they ended up being pretty successful, my grandparents were not at all fancy people. I can picture my grandpa in an ill fitting sports jacket 20 years out of style. So in that sense appropriate. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for jogging the good memory @gardenstategal.
He’s been gone a while, he was older. I was just talking to my oldest and he only remembers a really old man who didn’t talk much. I spent a couple years when I was little
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Well I have a favorite wedding that involved no pants. My cousin was an original, homeschooled in the god and guns model with whatever the library had in the $.25 rack. He was always doing wacky things like raising weasels for fur (at 12) or buying one way tickets to Europe to investigate his genealogy (hi cousin, from ten generations ago, can I sleep here?). He struggled with school and work, so when he married it was a low budget affair. Kilts were too expensive to buy or rent for most of the wedding party, so most men wore folded tartan plaid fleece blankets from the dollar store held in place by a belt. His bride’s father was unreliable so he rented a surprise horse as the stand in. Unfortunately she was in a very tight dress in the mermaid/train fashion and she had to walk it through the mud instead of ride it. Since it was “fancy dress” several of his civil war reenactment buddies wore period dress uniforms while prepping the potluck. At least until the forest ranger arrived and shut down the event because he had refused to buy a wedding permit.
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@SweetBoy1 and @CateCAParent , I love those stories.
My dad’s sister often was invited to the weddings of strangers because her husband was the officiant. I always looked forward to her "highlights " reel stories. I still recall one that involved a lengthy hike into the woods, attendees unsuitable dressed for said hike, a large bonfire, and everyone throwing something, perhaps wishes for the couple, into the fire. The mother of the bride’s throwing motion was such that her handbag followed her wish into the fire. I can’t recall exactly what happened next, but it diverged from plan.
Ah, I miss those!
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@SweetBoy1. That’s a classic. Thanks for sharing. You made me laugh over my morning coffee. I’m now awake. 
No where near as fun as your tale, but my littlest cousin who was the ringbearer in our wedding grabbed a plastic mustache out of his toy box on his way to the chapel and would NOT take it off without crying. His mother was furious, but I found it hilarious and told her to just let him be. He was dressed like a little man and thought he should have a manly mustache. I look back at the pictures now and still smile.
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Oh my! It must have been great to bring out those pictures when he was a teen! LOL.
I too am new here and have posted or responded a few times. I should introduce myself too!
I am a mom of an 8th grader (and a 5th grader). I attended St. George’s School back in the day, my sister attended Choate, so I’m not new to boarding school life, but new to applying as a parent. My father’s family all attended boarding schools - my dad at St George’s too, my uncle and aunt at Kent.
I had no idea March would be so stressful!
My daughter has attended the same independent catholic school since kindergarten, and is a strong student with straight As and usually top of her class or one of the top, but it’s a very small school, so being top is not that hard. Her grade has 2 “homerooms” and a graduating class size of 28 kids! We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but just happen to attend a very small school, even though we live in a city of a million people. She plays club volleyball and swam in club swimming before the pandemic (California made you pick 1 activity in person during the pandemic, and she chose volleyball). She enjoys theater and loves to sing. I don’t think though, she has anything amazing that makes her stand out or have a big “hook”. We also need significant FA which also adds to my anxiety.
She applied to a lot of boarding schools - most of the usual suspects: Exeter, Choate, Lawrenceville, St. George’s, Milton, Middlesex, Cate, Thacher (have to apply to the CA schools) plus probably 5 others. We are anxiously awaiting M10 and are thankful we found this forum. I wish I found it earlier though!
Good luck to everyone! Less than 48 hours!
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Not to be a downer, but he died suddenly of a heart attack on December 26th, and one of the reasons we’ve been desperate to get vaccinated is to attend his memorial service in Michigan in June. He was my aunt’s only child and became a police officer in GA, married, three children, 45 years old. We were devasted not to be able to attend the funeral (which was only about an hour from where our son currently lives), but most of our family is in Michigan, so we are all meeting there in June. He was a funny, joyous kid and his mom’s pride and joy.
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I am sorry to hear of your family’s loss, especially that of your aunt. Losing one’s child is horrible, but losing one’s only child - there are no words that are adequate.
I hope his memory is kept alive, especially for his children, through pictures and stories like yours.
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It seems a lot of schools misjudged delivery times for the mail this year. I wish Amazon would do that for all of my Prime orders… 
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Question for parents who have been through this multiple times already,is it always like this on M8 and M9, or is this year yet another anomaly?
And some of the schools that people have heard from officially (vs just had the unofficial heads up that they’re receiving something from the FedEx/UPS tracking feature) aren’t part of the Ten Schools org. I wonder if it’s intentional for those schools to notify successful candidates slightly early to get kids excited about their school before the M10 frenzy.