Uncovering a Nudist Wedding

To be invited to a nudist wedding was a vast honor in itself, but to have people begging you to be best man at some naked nuptials was a greater distinction than I could bear ... or is it bare?

I immediately thought of the vintage joke about a nudist bride who was asked by the minister, "Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" – and enthusiastically replied, "No, I've decided to take that one over there."

So I declined the invitation to be best man – secretly thinking it was quite modest of me – but said I'd be happy to attend and see just what was going on, or off, as the case might be. After all, a New York columnist is supposed to see everything – and this seemed the perfect opportunity.

My wife – B.W. – the initials stand for Beautiful Wife, Barefoot Wife and, at times, just Bourbon and Water – raised a slight problem when she announced:

"But I haven't a thing to wear!"

"That's exactly the way you're supposed to go – and anyway, who invited you?" I asked.

In her ladylike way, she delicately mentioned that the invitation read "Earl Wilson and Friend" – and if she ever heard of any dame being friendlier to me than she'd been, she'd stab the hussy in the gizzard with a nail file, no matter who she was.

You can see why I thought it wise to beseech her to come along. In fact, I begged her.

I'd been around the Skinorama Set before, having peeked in at some nudist conventions ... but to go to a wedding where the happy couple got out of their clothes before the ceremony ... well, sir, I got all goose-pimply.

And so did the bride, a fine little gray-haired lady named Louise West, who admitted to the age of 48.

She shivered, and shook, and her teeth did a rat-a-tat-tat, as she waited to say "I do" at that wedding up in the Rockies outside Denver that chilly evening. She kept her little cotton housecoat on until the minister got ready to begin his Question and Answer game. Not because she was nervous; because it was cold in them thar mountains at dusk.

If you don't think so, try running around the mountains without your clothes on some night around 7 o'clock – and you'll see. (If you've already tried it, how about telling me what happened?)

I suppose you think I was buddy-buddy with the bridegroom.

We had never met before, and when we did meet, he was naked, and having his pre-wedding supper. He was bouncing around the kitchen of the Colorado Sunshine Club holding a plate of ham and cabbage in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He was as brown as a berry from stem to stern. When he galloped up to my wife – who was clothed – and asked her if he couldn't fetch her another potato, she tried to shift her gaze to the ceiling. This is not easy when you're talking to a bridegroom who has no clothes on, especially when you're a woman.

Col. Herbert A. Lindle, U.S. Army, Retired – that was the bridegroom's name – was a boy of around 70.

Boy? He was with "Black Jack" Pershing on the Mexican Border in 1916. This was not a callow youth flinging himself into some impetuous flirtation.

"Where did we meet?" he said, echoing my question.

"Well," and he chuckled, "you see, she has a trailer camp near San Antonio.

"One day when I was roamin' around, I parked my trailer there, and ..."

There's a joke which I believe was concocted by Martin Burden of my staff, which goes like this: "Why do nudists get married?" ... "Because they can't wait to see what each other looks like with their clothes on."

But that wasn't true here. They'd met in a trailer camp, which is not the same as a nudist camp ... not usually, anyway ... and during their courtship, the Colonel had remarked casually to the lady that he owned property.

"I didn't tell her my property was a nudist camp," he confessed to me ... "not yet."

When he got to know her better, he admitted the bare facts – that darned word "bare" keeps coming in here and there's nothing I can do about it – he asked her if she wished to become a nudist.

"She thought it over 15 minutes and said yes," he recalled with some pride.

I don't mean in this article to overlook Evelyn West, the stripteaser known as "The Treasure Chest" (because she had her bosom insured with Lloyd's of London for $50,000), and I don't advise you to overlook her, either.

Evelyn was the bridesmaid.

She was there because she's been a nudist for some years, both on and off the burlesque stage. She's not related to Louise West, the bride.

"We're just sisters under the skin," is the way Evelyn puts it.

My wife and I didn't see Evelyn until we arrived at the camp. We rode out with a couple of nudists who commented on the beautiful mountain scenery.

"You'll be seeing some nice curves up ahead," the driver remarked, referring, I think, to the countryside.

"I hope we'll be seeing some nice ones at the wedding, too," cackled a companion, referring, I'm sure, to Evelyn.

Several nudists had already dined when we got there. Three or four gentleman nudists sat outside, relaxing, clad only in their after-dinner cigars.

We climbed the stairs to meet Evelyn.

I'd never met "The Treasure Chest" but she's the kind of girl you recognize, anywhere. She was bare-chested ... that's what I noticed first ... and she had on polka dot Bikini pants ... that's what I noticed second. She was also engaged in putting on her principal costume for the wedding – false eyelashes. I never did notice that. My wife told me later. Women notice details like that.

"Why the pants?" I asked her, waiting, of course, until we'd introduced ourselves to each other.

"I could ask you the same thing!" she retorted.

I forgot to mention that I had decided to wear something. Years back when I went to a nudist convention at Mays' Landing, N.J., I'd been required to strip. I was alarmed as to what my wife might think about me romping around naked before all that crowd on that occasion, and fearfully asked her permission to attend in the raw.

And was she jealous of my physique being seen by other females! "Thank God, this is one trip you're going on, I won't have to pack a bag for you!" she said.

But here in Colorado, the members of the press could be nude or not. I selected for my wedding costume a high silk hat and some striped swimming britches. Maybe it's because I'm older and more sedate that I wore something. Maybe it's because I have a rash.

I tried now to explain this to Evelyn and she tried to explain why she wore Bikini pants. Tossing her Treasure Chest modestly about, she said she'd worn the pants just to greet me ... she thought she ought to have a little something on.

"Oh, let's do away with these formalities," I said.

And so Evelyn took 'em off, and went downstairs as naked as a jaybird. She did have on high-heeled shoes, a little bridesmaid's hat, her false eyelashes, and a dab of powder here and there. She also carried a corsage ... and somebody thrust in her hands a sign that said, "Check your fig leaves upstairs."

The minister now arrived. Think of that ... a nude minister!

"What's his name?" I whispered to Evelyn.

"Homer," she said.

"Homer Who?"

"Nudists only wear their first names," she shrugged, prettily.

Another nudist, overhearing, spoke up. "We don't think it's a good idea to give out his whole name because he might be criticized for this in the press."

Somebody else added, "Anyway, Homer's only a lay minister."

The Rev. Homer Blank's disrobes of office consisted of his spectacles and his shoes. He was fiftyish. When we finished our supper and walked out to our cars, to mount the stony path to the wedding site, still higher in the Rockies, one of the nudist bosses told us:

"You can take nearly any pictures you wish – except, please, no front views of Homer."

We had seven or eight photographers in our crowd. They listened attentively to the instructions about no front views of Homer – and ignored them. Not because they wanted any front views of Homer, but because if Homer's front view happened to be in the way of a picture they wanted, what could they do?

I soon found out that the nudist wedding was being run, more or less, by an enterprising radio commentator, Grady Franklin Maples of KGMC at nearby Englewood.

"We have a very lively station – if there isn't any nudes to report, we make nudes," he told his audience.

Before the wedding actually got started, it seemed to him that it would be a fine idea for all the nudists to sing Happy Birthday on the air. And so their happy voices boomed out through the chilly mountain air.

"Whose birthday is it?" my B.W. inquired.

I shrugged. But Bill Peery of the Rocky Mountain News observed, "It must be everybody's. Everybody's in his birthday suit!"

Finally, when all the nudists had been thoroughly interviewed for the radio, the enterprising commentator was ready to go to the more formal part – the wedding. He took his microphone up to the cluster of principals and told them to go ahead – he was ready now.

The Rev. Homer Whoozis cleared his throat.

He had on something now. He had put on a jacket. Homer's front view was partly covered. It wasn't to cover up his front view that he'd put on a jacket, however. He was just cold.

"Everybody ready?" he asked.

"Where's the bridesmaid?" somebody remembered.

Evelyn West was in plain sight – a very nice sight, too. She was standing over against a tree doing some Eve poses for the photographers. Miss West was raising a knee flirtatiously and giving her impressions of Eve in the Garden. Miss West knows how to do this perfectly, as she has posed for Tom Kelley, the Hollywood photographer who gave the world the Marilyn Monroe calendar.

"Oh, Evelyn, let's get with it," somebody called to her.

Snatching up her corsage, Evelyn trotted over ... bouncety – bouncety – bouncety. The bride-to-be whipped off her housecoat, realizing that the moment had come. The bridegroom-to-be had been naked throughout the warm-up festivities and he only had to take the lady by the arm.

It was about this time that I beheld a strange sight – perhaps I should say, another strange sight.

Into our little crowd of 70 or 80 came a famous man, the big New York real estate man and builder, William Zeckendorf.

Naked? Far from it!

Big Bill was in a western outfit with a phony sheriff's badge. He comes from Colorado, and had just arrived from a Frontier Days celebration at Cheyenne. A friend had induced him to come along as a guest to the nudist nuptials.

But since I usually see Mr. Zeckendorf in a dinner jacket at some New York banquet, I didn't recognize him at first.

He gazed around at this naked crowd and shook his head in wonderment.

"I'm like the little boy who saw a giraffe," he said. "The boy said, I see it, but I don't believe it.' "

The Rev. Homer was now peering through his specs at the marriage ritual. Bridesmaid Evelyn West saw the photographers getting ready to shoot the happy wedding scene, and lowered her corsage a bit for them. The flash bulbs popped crazily out there in the woods. The Rev. Homer plowed through the ritual ... until he came to the part where the bridegroom was supposed to endow the bride with a ring.

The Rev. Homer looked at the bridegroom.

No ring!

Had he forgotten it ... or misplaced it? Some bridegrooms might in their nervousness forget which pocket they put the ring in but this bridegroom (concluded on page 61) Nudist Wedding (continued from page 18) didn't have that trouble, for he had no pockets.

"I guess nudists don't even believe in wearing rings," whispered a photographer near me.

The Rev. Homer – sizing up the situation – skipped the ring part of the ceremony, and wound it up. The bridegroom grabbed the bride around the waist and kissed her firmly. Liking it, he kissed her two more times. Then John Garrison, the best man and owner of the camp, kissed her.

"Do we also get to kiss the bridesmaid?" asked one of the photographers, fixing a glad eye on Evelyn West.

"No!" squealed Evelyn.

"Were you nervous?" I asked the bride ... who, after the ceremony and the picture-taking, quickly put her housecoat back on and drew it tightly about her.

"N-n-no," she shivered, "b-but I was almost f-f-froze!"

In the darkness we rode back down to the house where we'd had our pre-wedding dinner. The newlyweds arrived, the bride peeled off her coat, and they sliced a wedding cake. The Rev. Homer sat for a long time at a table writing out the marriage certificate.

There was no champagne ... just a light non-alcoholic punch, for nudists generally are very careful about prohibiting alcohol on their premises.

It'd been arranged for my wife and I to ride back to Denver with the Rev. Homer and his wife, so we all sang out a cheery goodbye to the newlyweds who were still eating wedding cake and who seemed extremely happy.

And now that the wedding was over, the story ended like so many before it: the guests put on their pants and went home.