American engagement announcements:
"Mr. and Mrs. George X. of Brooklyn announce the engagement of their daughter, Lisa Alice to William Y., son of Lewis and Mary Y. of Freeport, New York. Ms. X. graduated summa cum laude from Smith College, and is a real estate agent with the Towne Home Realty in Brooklyn. Mr. Y graduated from St. Johns University and is a freelance writer. A June wedding is planned."
Swedish engagement announcements:
"We got engaged! Alexandra Johansson, Anders Svensson, Gothenburg, 10/10/07"
"Missing pieces of the puzzle are in place! Alexandra Andersson, Anders Karlsson, Stockholm, 5/8/07"
Swedish wedding announcements:
"A wedding took place in XX church on DATE between Anna Svensson and Karl Karlsson. XX was officiating the ceremony. The bride will now take the name Karlsson."
"We got married at XX on DATE. Thanks to everyone! Anna Karlsson and Karl Svensson. Now we are both named Svensson."
American wedding announcements:
"Mr and Mrs. John Smith (NOTICE, the mother has no first name of her own!) have the pleasure of announcing the marriage of their daughter Jennifer Anne to Mr. John Stevens. The wedding took place in an extremely fancy and expensive location in the afternoon of March 3 and a very wonderful priest officiated the ceremony.
The bride has a master's degree in an undetermined subject and the groom has graduated three times from different schools to earn degrees that will never get him a job. They both work in a city nobody has ever heard of but will reside in Greenwich, Connecticut, after the wedding, where they will start copulating to expand their family immediately."
Well, perhaps not to that extreme, but it's pretty close...
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2 comments:
...Do you know you're my favoritest blogger ever? :)
The Swedish announcements seem very chatty to me, but that's probably because I'm so used to the more formal ones. I really like the explicit mention of what the last name is going to be, since it's not always as simple as "woman will take man's name, and then work on producing a male child" anymore...
Oh dear, we had a really good laugh... especially the end...
To blueplastic: Swedish announcements might be rather formal too, but not the extent that the parents of the bride announce their daughter's engagement or marriage. The reason for this is that Swedish women are supposed decide to take the step into marriage without needing their parents' (or father's, as it used to be) consent. Thus the father of the bride doesn't give away his daughter. The couple walks up the aisle together.
Also, in Sweden women aren't Mrs their husband's first and second name anymore. I guess we dropped that in the 1960s. Had that been the case now, I'd never have married!
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