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Gathering celebrates bridal beauty, art of tea drinking
By ANDREW MEACHAM © St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2001 ST. PETERSBURG -- Three generations of well-heeled women celebrated tea and bridal beauty last weekend at Northeast Presbyterian Church. Speakers extolled the spiritual benefits of each. "Don't be caught in your slip when your bridegrooms come," marketing representative Jeannette Reynolds warned listeners as they nibbled pastries from three-tiered trays. "Get your acts together." After Reynolds, 49, finished a talk replete with biblical references, the first of two groups of women retired to change. The wedding gowns they proceeded to don were mostly their own, but there were exceptions. Helen Hood didn't make the procession, but her royal blue wedding dress did. Daughter Becky Wells, 57, modeled it, as Helen Hood watched from her seat. Becky's father, Emmett Hood Jr., 84, was among a handful of escorts for the brides. Sandi Stone, who markets Mary Kay cosmetics, wore a satin lace dress belonging to her sister-in-law. "I didn't crash-diet. I've just been exercising," said Stone, 53. Linda Anello, 50, spent only one day shopping for her dress for her 1971 wedding, which she purchased from a now-defunct Haber's store for $60. To the electric piano strains of More, The Impossible Dream and other vintage hits, the brides emerged one by one. Emcee Barbara Shaffer recounted wedding anecdotes (Anello's minister got hit with a champagne cork at the wedding reception and left in a huff) and favorite Bible passages for each of the participants. She also narrated the fashion quirks of each decade, from hats and shoulder pads of the '40s to clear pumps in the '70s that contained live goldfish. Families turned out in force. Ben Alderson bought a guitar and serenaded wife Susan and the audience. Their daughter Susanna and new husband Craig Patrick, a public relations director and recent City Council candidate, will share their own April wedding with a national audience when the Learning Channel features them in The Wedding Story. Abigail, an arthritic poodle, concluded ceremonies by shuffling among the tables in a bridal veil. Owner Ruth Roney, 85, also coaxed the animal to "play" a dog-sized piano. Kylie Thigpen, 11, came away feeling she had learned something. "I liked the fact that I could be a model for my mom," said Kylie, wearing mother Angela Thigpen's 1983 wedding dress. Kylie said she also enjoyed learning the history of tea from Kay Leonard, a protocol officer at MacDill Air Force Base. In the morning's first presentation, Leonard gave out a list of do's and don't's for tea drinkers. Failure to observe these rules of etiquette, she said semijokingly, could land one in the "tea hall of shame." Anna, duchess of Bedford, is credited with starting tea parties in the 1840s, as an antidote to her "sinking spells." But some references go back to Madame de Sevigne, of 17th century France, who referred to "five o'clock tea" in a letter. Correct tea drinkers, Leonard said, serve with cup handles at 20 minutes past the hour. They use only cloth napkins. They stir in noiseless crescents -- never full circles -- over the top half of the cup interior. They never remove lemon slices from the cup; nor do they talk while drinking. "Look into the cup," Leonard said. "Do not look over the cup." The point of these tips, she said, is to preserve tea drinking as a meditative experience (in contrast with coffee, which promotes conversation). One note, as long as the subject is tea etiquette: "Tea hour" runs from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., according to Letitia Baldrige's The Complete Guide to the New Manners for the '90s. The ceremonies at Northeast Presbyterian started at 9:30 a.m. and ended around noon. "We just knew we weren't going to get a crowd if we had it in the middle of the afternoon Saturday," said Shaffer, a congregational ministries director for the church. "You can say that we totally missed the etiquette on that."
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