1966 - The Danish Bride

Have I told the tale of the Danish Bride? It all happened in 1966.

Dorte Meyer, a young student from Copenhagen, was traveling through the United States when she wandered through Santa Fe. At the downtown Plaza Bar, she met 28 year old Santa Fean Anton Miller and it was love at first sight.

When Miller proposed marriage, Dorte was agreeable but she wanted to observe old Danish wedding customs. The first of which, it turned out, involved the bride's shoes. The custom in Denmark required the young couple to collect pennies in a champagne bottle – from friends, family, even strangers – and use that money to buy the bride's wedding shoes. Apparently, it was bad luck to obtain the shoes any other way.

So Anton and Dorte acquired a large champagne bottle and posted it on the counter at the Plaza Bar, with a little note explaining its purpose. Soon enough, the jug began to fill with pennies.

Plans were made for the wedding, the license, flowers, justice of the peace and about a month later, the wedding day came. Gene Petchesky, owner of the downtown Guarantee store was contacted and asked if he would sell the bride her wedding shoes in the Danish Custom. Gene, a smart businessman, said yes even though he had no idea what the Danish custom might be.

Anton Miller arrived to pick up his bride on a bicycle, placed her on the cross bar and pedaled over to the Plaza Bar. There, they retrieved a full champagne bottle of pennies and pedaled over to the Guarantee Store. There, the bride tried on every pair of white shoes in stock, finally settling on the first pair she had tried on. That, I believe, is an American custom.

When it came time to pay, the bride called for the champagne bottle, pulled a hammer out of her purse and smashed the bottle, spraying pennies everywhere. All this to the astonishment of Gene Petcheskey and his staff. But once the custom was explained, Petcheskey took it in good humor and set his staff to count the pennies – $15.91 – which he accepted as payment.

Then the couple pedaled to the Justice of the Peace for the ceremony but there was a short delay as the best man was sent back home for the forgotten marriage license. He also made a short detour for flowers which the groom had also forgotten. The best man didn't say where he got the flowers, but he did say that it was lucky he lived next door to a cemetery.

After the ceremony, the happy couple repaired to the Plaza Bar for the reception where the bride was treated to an ice cream sherbet and the wedding party toasted with traditional Swedish gloegg, a hot spiced drink. Apparently pretty potent as well, because the groom – barely wed 4 hours – was later arrested on Lincoln Avenue for public drunkenness and drunk driving on a bicycle. The complaint was lodged by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Miller of Garcia Street, who weren't able to convince their intoxicated son to come home.

Oh, carrying a bride on a bicycle is also a Danish custom but not in this case. Between them, Anton Miller and Dorte Meyer owned six cars and one airplane but none of them worked. And they owned two bicycles, but one of them had been stolen earlier in the week. So, as it happened, the one bicycle was all the transportation they had.