The Cartoonists’ Parents

My mom’s sister printed this one out and had it hanging on her fridge for a long time. It’s full of true-life stories. The cat’s name was Gilly, and my dad eventually scared it away forever by yelling at it. The engagement story is also, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. These are the people who raised me, which may explain why I’m a little on the jumpy side.

My dad’s name is Patrick, but my mom always calls him Murphy because that’s how she was introduced to him. And yes, Patrick Garrity is just about as Irish as a name gets.

You have to go through so much stuff to get a Catholic wedding! There’s forms and counseling and you have to pretend you’re not going to use birth control. I recommend Vegas. The priest who officiated our wedding was really nice, and it turned out great in the end, but the year leading up to it was rough.

11 thoughts on “The Cartoonists’ Parents

  1. It seems to be much easier to get a catholic wedding in France.

    I went to one where the groom was muslim (the bride’s parents wanted a nice ceremony in a church and he didn’t really care). The priest seemed to have a “no question asked” policy.

  2. (TUNE:  “L-O-V-E”, Nat King Cole)

    L is for the way you loudly yell;
    O is for your overbearing smell;
    V is how you vary … your vile vocabulary;
    E is everyone expecting us to quit and run!

    Well, LOVE we share, although we fight and fuss!
    LOVE is there, although we swear and cuss!
    Yes, I love you, jerk!  Now shut your face and go to work!
    Yeah, LOVE is made for both of us!

  3. My Catholic wedding was fairly permissive.  I didn’t get anything about using the right birth control (the weekend wedding-prep seminar talked about it, but never attempted to extract promises), but it turns out that if you’re marrying a non-Catholic, you can’t have a Mass (with the whole communion bit and the rest) at your wedding ceremony.

    It’s good to not be Catholic.  Can you imagine tacking on another hour to the wedding?

  4. True story: My husband, who is not Catholic, was best man in a Catholic wedding. The groom actually had to make a substantial “donation” to the church before the priest would okay his presence in the wedding party. Of course, this was over twenty years ago, so things may have changed even in the wilds of PA.

  5. You know, I live in a Catholic Country (no seriously, we still have official religion and all), and I understand, getting married is complicated and priests are obstrusive. Did you have to take a course? People who get married in this country (Costa Rica) HAVE to take a course, and the best man and maid of honor too (same if you want to be a godparent); well, at least here the guys here are not crazy enough to espect you not to use birth control, they know the turf. Anyway, I’m glad you survived.
    Good luck from a Fake Latin Catholic to an Irish Catholic

  6. For the record? Vegas was awesome. Our ‘wedding planner’ (he came with the package) had a pompadour and was cheerful. Our chat with the pastor was three minutes which involved our selecting a service and asking they not play the Wagner/Mendelssohn processional/recessional. Later, we got to see our names in lights over the strip for twelve glorious seconds. And the ceremony was beautiful, as was Wednesday, and was over in seven minutes whereupon we sat down and watched friends do the same thing.Then we had Korean food and drank ourselves silly to the sound of slot machines and bad rockabilly.I swear, I’m choked up just thinking about that day. No joke. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  7. My dad’s a Protestant minister, and although there’s nothing requiring him to give a class, he gives it anyway because he wants to make sure the couple has thought through what being married means. Being still single, I’ve never attending it, but I understand the first thing out of his mouth is “Over half of all marriages in the US end in divorce. Tell me why you’ll be different.” (I’m guessing, in the case of the Garritys, the answer would be “Because we’re too stubborn to give my sister the satisfaction!”)

  8. Andrew’s brother got married at the Venetian in Vegas. It was excellent. I very seriously recommend the Vegas wedding.

  9. We had to have a meeting with the minister too – Church of Scotland (Protestant) and it basically went:

    Minister: Jon isn’t religious, right? Can I help you come up with vows you’re both comfortable with?

    Us: Ehm, OK!

    Strangely, Shaenon’s parents’ relationship sounds exactly like my grandparents’. They made it to their diamond wedding, still arguing. My mother says she did her best to check that my dad was much more peaceable than her father before they got married.

  10. My parents got married in 1977 and, between the drawing of the wedding photo and your desription of the colors, I think theirs looked exactly the same as your parents, with the obvious addition of powder blue yarmulkes and a huppah overhead.

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