Hearsay from Manhattan
By W. F. Twyman, Jr.
Windsor Castle, England
And so two old friends from college were catching up on their lives. Once upon a time, they were roommates in an Ivy League dorm room. Today, they were mothers with husbands and adult children. The wind chill was bitterly cold outside. The friendship inside was warm and intimate.
“So, my son got married at this stately British house. My younger son is in love with this blonde woman from Texas. I don’t like her.”
“Why don’t you like her?”
“Well, she’s a bit of an airhead. Not too smart,” one friend said, with that particularly English mix of politeness and dismissal. “My son will say something and she will ask what does that mean? She’s his first love. Anyway, there was this back and forth, back and forth, whether she would come out for the wedding. She came out and saw castles in the countryside.”
“And?”
“She wants to get married in a castle now. How gauche to be married in a castle. Americans.” I smiled at this. Not just at the castle aspiration, but at my friend’s thoroughly English dismissal of it — the casual “Americans” spoken as if she hadn’t been one herself years ago.
I have used the word “gauche” only twice over the past three years in this lonely Substack. I used it once before to describe the icky feeling when young adults I know referred to their white girlfriend and boyfriend, respectively.
Is it gauche to be married in a castle like Windsor Castle? Well, these are First World problems. I am bemused, not envious at all. Just intrigued by a friend of a friend’s reaction. Some Americans have a fascination with British royalty. It is the perennial feeling the grass is greener across the pond. We do not have a ruling aristocracy dating back to William Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings in the year 1066. So, we Americans idolize the Brits with their noblemen and castles in the countryside.
My daughter and I have been to the Randolph Hearst Castle in San Luis Obispo County, California. The place was like something out of a Hollywood dream. In fact, it was the primary inspiration for Xanadu, the fictional castle in the movie Citizen Kane. It would never have occurred to me to marry off my daughter at the Hearst Castle. Like that would have come across as over the top, extra. My neural pathways never made that connection as the castle seemed from another realm.
The Hearst Castle
To be fair and when my wife was pregnant with my daughter, I did romanticize about a wedding ceremony at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia. The Jefferson Hotel for me was attainable and within the universe of the possible. The long steps and the lobby offered memories of a lifetime:
The Jefferson Hotel
The words that came to my mind when my teenaged daughter walked down the steps to the lobby were elegant, opulent, magnificent, stunning and beautiful. The word gauche never came to my mind.
So, what is gauche? According to the online dictionary I am using right now, gauche is lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward. Gauche describes “someone who doesn't know the proper way to behave in social situations, often appearing crude or unsophisticated.”
When an English citizen perceives an American as reaching for royal status, this reach is offputting. It seems awkward and trying too hard to impress. In fact, the best way to show one belongs is to be understated. Booking a castle for a wedding ceremony is the opposite of understated.
Before I conclude the friend of a friend is entitled to her proper opinions of the blonde American girl, consider these wrinkles in the human condition. I loved this hearsay from the heart of Manhattan for the nuance and complexity of it all.
First, the British citizen is a native of America who moved to England as a young adult. She fell in love in England and its people. Isn’t it ironic how complete the assimilation can be over an adult lifetime? The proper English transplant native to America views her future daughter-in-law as an American with all that entails. Does the friend remember her American youth and ways back in the day?
Second, the friend of a friend is of Old Family stock in the U.S. Does the marriage of a son in a proper British house check the proper box? Yes, it does. Does being English in her social circles create expectations? I suspect friends might attend a castle wedding ceremony with the same raised eyebrows she now has for this ‘blonde from Texas.’” Once again, the best way to signal one is comfortable is to live an understated life.
These are questions of social class and status. For me, a big deal wedding ceremony would be securing the lobby of The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond. A castle would seem over the top and not cross my radar screen. Ironically, the friend of a friend has the same mindset but coming from a different country and class. If the aim is to be understated, I would advise the future daughter-in-law to go for a nice British house. Make the in-laws happy from the start.
The problem is the friend of a friend is a very proper English woman now. She has lost her American identity. It would be gauche to tell the blonde Texan the truth.