Five Siblings Get Married in the Same Day

It can be hard for some brides to even share the spotlight with their groom, but in the Waldie family, five brides and grooms shared the same wedding day and reception. Each couple was made up of one Waldie sibling (three sisters and two brothers), along with their new spouses. All five couples got engaged within a two-month span. This must be a pretty close family, because I have heard of some siblings putting off engagements until their bridezilla sister’s wedding has passed. When all of the couples started planning their weddings, accomodating out-of-town guests to attend each event was looking like a nightmare. Father Doug Waldie joked that all of the couples should get married on the same day – so they did.

Emily, 28; Bradford, 26; Sydney, 25; Walker, 24; and Brooke, 20, are the five Waldie children who share an anniversary on August 10.  CNN says that their grandfather thinks, “…it’s about time. We’ve been worried about some of them.” No pressure for the other three Waldie siblings who didn’t get married that day…

Speaking of the others, 18-year-old Andee Waldie, one of the two unmarried sisters, served as a bridesmaid for four of the five couples. With quadruple duties like that, do you think she had time to wonder why she wasn’t asked to be part of the fifth wedding party?

USA Today reports that each couple had a separate ceremony, but CNN claims that it was a joint ceremony in the LDS Temple in Mesa, Arizona. Ceremonies in the temple are open to faithful Mormons only, and there are no cameras allowed inside. CNN claims to have waited on the temple’s grass, so they must have had an inside – uh, make that outside scoop. What everyone agrees on is that there was one giant reception in an airplane hangar museum.

Each couple’s personal tastes were reflected at the reception; a directional sign guided guests to each couple’s section. One section had peaches for centerpieces, another had pinwheels. One couple had a popcorn machine. There were five different cakes with five separate cake-cutting ceremonies. The five brides had different dresses, though they were similar in their modest, short-sleeved style. They all made different exits from the reception, too; one couple left on a tandem bicycle. Some traditions were given a group spin: the father-daughter dance featured Mr. Waldie dancing in a circle with three of his daughters, and the odds of catching a garter were very good, since all five were tossed at the same time.

The Waldie family saved a lot of money by hosting all of their relatives in one reception rather than five separate ones. There’s another perk to sharing your wedding day: there are nine other people to remind you when your anniversary is coming up.