Like every little girl, I’ve long dreamed of the perfect wedding — not my own, to be clear, but that of a 72-year-old man from Indiana. The Golden Wedding is finally here and I am bracing myself for emotional whiplash. Will I talk shit? It is literally my job to do so. Will I also cry? At least three times. What can I say? These crazy kids really do seem happy!
La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs is not, as I initially thought, your average La Quinta Inn, but something much nicer with far deeper budgets for flower arches, violins, and drone shots. As if the stakes weren’t high enough tonight, Jesse Palmer — my good friend who has for reasons I can’t entirely explain grown on me so much; what a journey we’ve been on together — shares that his wife is at home literally about to have a baby right now and it’s possible he may have to leave at any moment. At this rate, it would not surprise me if Ben Higgins were forced to emergency-land a plane live on television.
It’s great to see the Golden ladies. Ellen, wearing the earrings Gerry gave her, says she recently went on a date. Natascha, who looks amazing in a regal shade of purple velvet and her signature chair earrings, gives the event’s seating a glowing review. Then she shouts motivationally, direct to camera, about how we should get off our couches, stop watching our children (?), bring love into our lives, etc., and the energy is very Bill Murray at the end of Scrooged.
But make no mistake: This is Kathy’s night, possibly even more so than it is Gerry and Theresa’s. Her lips are decidedly unzipped. She and recent Bachelorette Charity Lawson are responsible for “gold carpet†interviews, although for each word that Charity speaks, Kathy gets in approximately 20, complaining about being single and generally spraying her stream of consciousness like a fire hose at all who approach. It brings me joy to watch Charity grow increasingly annoyed with Kathy throughout the course of the evening, particularly as Kathy persistently hits on her fiancé, Dotun. Some highlights:
• Here’s how Kathy introduces presumptive Golden Bachelorette Leslie: “So, we all know that you did not get the man of your dreams, you had your heart broken on national TV, and now you’ve had a health scare.†You know what they say — the worst part of suffering from a bowel obstruction on your birthday is the terrifying prospect that someone might neglect to bring it up again on national TV!
• Kathy also comes in hot interviewing Faith: “You told Gerry that you would not move and leave your dead horse buried in your backyard.†It’s giving Leta Powell Drake.
• Kathy threatens to buy Kaity Biggar, who is allergic to cats, a “whole passel of kittens†as a wedding present.
• Kathy leads Edith, my close personal friend April (criminally underused tonight), and Charity in a toast in honor of “single ladies†such as themselves. “Well, that’s not me,†Charity mutters, not sounding not irritated. (Also, Charity and Dotun, who is so tall it’s like they have to abruptly switch up the aspect ratio just to get him in frame, announce that they’re getting married in fall 2025, and while I’m happy for them, that is way too far out for me to care. What are the odds of civilization not collapsing by then?)
This should be common practice at weddings: Distribute microphones to randomly selected guests so Aunt Betsy can pop off about how the band is playing too loud and how the dry cleaners misplaced the skirt suit she was originally going to wear. At its best, with guests milling around taking selfies and having little carrots and peas conversations in the background of most shots, the Golden Wedding broadcast has a loosey-goosey quality that reminds me of ’70s talk shows, which seemingly used to consist solely of famous people drinking brown liquor straight, chain-smoking, and doing, like, push-up contests with their co-stars. We didn’t know how good we had it!
And yet this two-hour special sure does contain a lot of filler. (Not that kind of filler — although, yeah, I guess, also that kind of filler.) In one pretaped package, we see the Turners and the Nists celebrating Christmas together. It’s nice! They bake Gerry’s late wife’s cookie recipe and Gerry kicks a ball around with Theresa’s grandsons. When he asks them for their blessing to marry her, one answers, “Uh, we’re just, like, children.†The kid makes a fair point.
It’s during this segment that it becomes clear who, in fact, is picking up the tab for this wedding. Theresa explains, sounding extremely natural, that they made a registry on “Amazon wedding registries.†I laugh out loud when her daughter Jen responds, “I’m a huge Amazon fan,†a sentence that has never, and will never, be organically spoken by anyone. If you drank every time Amazon was mentioned during the Golden Wedding, you would surely be hospitalized — although, on the bright side, maybe you could check on Mrs. Palmer while you’re in there. The plot thickens when an Amazon commercial displays a QR code that allows you to shop products from Gerry and Theresa’s registry (did I mention? It’s on Amazon) for yourself. Items of note include $75 Lumineux electric toothbrushes, which is a real chump buy, considering the Oral B will run you like 30 bucks. There are the intriguingly named SLOTHMORE back massager ($134.99, an unconvincing 4.0 stars) and, most importantly, a $318.98 birdhouse. Some journalism for you: When the Golden Wedding aired on Thursday night, there were only seven birdhouses left in stock. As of press time on Friday morning, there are still seven birdhouses in stock.
After marrying the first time with only two days’ notice, Theresa gets to do it up in style in round two with a wedding planner who Twitter tells me normally works with the Kardashians. (I imagine she and Gerry are about to be in trouble for ripping off somebody’s La Dolce Vita lifestyle.) Susan and Kathy join her for wedding-dress shopping. Theresa settles on a glamorous Badgley Mischka off-the-shoulder mermaid dress, which, fittingly, Kathy zips her into. Neil Lane finally gets the airtime he is owed every season according to the terms of an ancient blood oath when Gerry picks out a sparkly eternity band for Theresa and a meteorite ring for himself.
In attendance tonight are some of Bachelor Nation’s biggest stars. (Discussion question: How much of the wedding-guest list do you think was actual, IRL loved ones?) But I have to confess: I have no idea who most of these symmetrical-faced, freshly veneered people are because I took an extended sabbatical from the franchise after Rachel Lindsay’s season. (I needed a minute, okay?) So imagine my delight when presented with a new-to-me man wearing two dangly peacock-feather earrings whose name is apparently Brayden because of course it is. He tells a long story about how he was shocked when Christina, his girlfriend of I gather not terribly long, understood a reference he made to Tenacious D. “You don’t even know anything about Tenacious D,†he fondly recalls telling her about a band she literally had concert tickets for at the time. Charming! Then: He proposes, literally the worst thing you can do at a wedding besides pulling a Graduate. After the commercial break, Jesse Palmer hastily confirms that Brayden got Theresa and Gerry’s advance permission to pop the question. All I know for sure is that the insatiable Neil Lane has acquired yet another human finger for his collection.
In another pretaped segment, Theresa invites Susan (who brings Champagne flutes “from your Amazon wedding registry!â€), Sandra, Ellen, and Faith to her bachelorette party, where they find themselves compelled to participate in a boudoir photo session. This, supposedly, is empowering, and while I don’t mean for a second to suggest that these women don’t look beautiful (by the way, we learn from her daughter that Theresa’s fitness regimen consists of running in place in her house for five minutes at a time), I would, respectfully, choose death over participating in mandatory boudoir photos even at someone’s non-televised bachelorette party. But not Sandra. For her shoot, she pretends the photographer is Denzel. She strokes the bedpost suggestively, then helpfully explains, “That’s his dick I’m rubbing.†(How I missed her!) Then Chippendales dancers appear to pelvic-thrust as wholesomely as anyone ever has and present their mid-ections to be drummed upon. (“Smooth skin, tight butts … I sound like a predator,†Faith observes.) Lo and behold, Sandra has brought one of the dancers, and his abs, as her date to the Golden Wedding.
At long last, it’s time for the main event. The most clumsily timed commercial break of the night happens just before Theresa walks down the aisle — she’s already standing there, waiting to go, in full view of everybody, spoiling the reveal. Is a heavily armed Amazon rep standing just out of frame, forbidding her to walk down the aisle until viewers at home order enough electric toothbrushes to meet their quota? At least let the woman hide under a Badgley Mischka lace tarp or something.
Actual, real-life wedding officiant Susan proves she’s quite literally a pro at this: funny, charming, and sweet. She points out that the proclamation she made when she stepped out of the limo — “Gerry, I’m going to marry you†— came true, just not in the way anyone expected. While she speaks movingly of how they defied the odds to find each other, her little earpiece falls out of place and she calmly replaces it without batting an eye. Likewise: At some point during the ceremony, one of Theresa’s strappy little sleeves breaks, but she reappears after a commercial with it repaired. Live TV, baby!
Gerry’s daughters, despite having been done dirty by the invasive-species ruffles on their bridesmaid dresses, give a sweet joint speech about how proud they are of their dad and how fond they are of Theresa. The bride’s daughter takes the mic, too. Jen seems so sweet and clearly loves her mom very much, but I do wonder if she might benefit from making an additional “best friend,†perhaps one who did not personally give birth to her.
Theresa’s vows are lovely but a little hard to pay full attention to, given I can’t take my eyes off Gerry. Our guy is a crier, and the man is more or less continually twitching with tears by this point, his face spasming into 1,000 microexpressions per second. When it’s his turn, Gerry seems uncharacteristically nervous, consulting notes and hesitating, but he eventually hits his stride. Check off “the woman I can’t live without†on your Golden Wedding bingo card. (While you’re at it, check off the convertible with the malfunctioning headlights, too — check it off, like, 14 times.) When Gerry brings up Costa Rica, we cut to Leslie, which is … wild. Imagine: Not only attending your ex’s wedding, but attending his wedding to a woman he dumped you for like five months ago and having your in-the-moment reaction to his bringing up the very circumstances in which he rejected you captured on camera for posterity. There’s another unfortunate mid-vows audience-reaction shot featuring Trista and Ryan, right after Gerry promises to make Theresa “the happiest woman on earth.†Ryan mouths something to his wife that looks kind of like “Not gonna happen.†Lip readers, please get at me.
After a few seconds of awkward fumbling to get the rings out of the fussy little bows tied on them (quick question: Why are there fussy little bows tied on them?), Theresa looks absolutely shocked when Gerry actually puts it on her finger. “Oh my God,†she says breathily, as if it has only now fully dawned on her what’s happening. Has anyone ever been this excited to get married? Then Susan asks them to imagine their life together in ten years, and Theresa whispers “dead,†and I have never liked her more. Finally, they are pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Turner, and at long last, the Gatch kisses his bride ( … Gride?).
At the reception, we enjoy approximately 13 seconds of Leslie, Ben Higgins, et al. dancing to “Boo Thing†(the one true song of the season, IMO; leave Journey to The Sopranos). There is very nearly a multiwoman pileup when Theresa throws the bouquet, from which Joan and Kathy both come away with fistfuls. By the way, these people are going to be fed at some point, yes? Can we at least throw them a passed hors d’oeuvre?
Gerry delivers a brief farewell speech that gets drowned out by the wedding band effectively playing him off with “Don’t Stop Believin’.†The hammy lead singer steals the show, jumping off the stage and shouting, “Gerry, catch me!†If this guy reminds you of the wedding singer from Old School, that’s because that’s exactly who he is.
Thank you all for being my collective date to the Golden Wedding. With any luck, we’ll see one another again soon — maybe even in the sunny climes of Golden Bachelor in Paradise?