Sunday, July 22, 2012

Man in kilt


This is Son and DIL leading off the dancing at the start of the wedding ceilidh. Now, of recent years there has been a silly "tradition" - not traditional at all - that Scottish men don't wear anything under their kilts. I haven't conducted any research on this, you'll understand, but I seriously doubt that anyone sensible would fail to wear pants (or underpants, as I believe Americans would call them) in a kilt-wearing situation. Apart from anything else, men aren't so good at sitting with their knees together as ladies are; and also, this is Scotland and it can be chilly.

So you'll be relieved to know that Son was wearing his Wedding Pants.

These are boxer shorts that his big sister (Daughter 2) gave him before Daughter 1's wedding in 2006. I now can't remember exactly why, except that clearly everyone needs Wedding Pants. (They're green with red and yellow cars on them.) After the wedding, they entered his pants drawer and were rotated with his others. In due course they were retired - to be brought briefly out of retirement for Daughter 2's wedding last year.

When he inspected them before his own wedding, he found that the elastic had perished somewhat. However, you can't get married without your Wedding Pants, obviously, so he put them on and used a safety pin for - well, safety. And they didn't fall down.

They weren't on display so I didn't know that he was wearing them till later.

I think they might have served their purpose now.

PS: Having written this, I was struck briefly with doubts as to whether Son would like his underwear described to the world of Blog. So I texted him: Can I blog about your wedding pants?  He replied: Of course!  So I will.

13 comments:

  1. Just back from holiday- where we only had two days of full rain. Catching up and smiling broadly!

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  2. I believe that the motivation behind my buying him wedding pants was this. In the run up to D1s wedding Dad came home one day having bought himself a new suit and shirt for the wedding and some perfectly ordinary pants to top up his supply. "Ah", I said when he pulled them out the bag, "wedding pants". For some reason this appealed to my brother as a concept, who bemoaned the fact he didn't have new pants to wear to his sister's wedding (perhaps because he wasn't wearing anything new?). So I went out and bought him some pants, as any good sister would do. He did tell me that he was wearing them at my wedding, but I would have bought him some new ones for his own wedding had I known that they required the safety pin! D2

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  3. Thank goodness for safety pins!

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  4. So the something borrowed something new obviously doesn't apply in the case of a bridegroom! Bless him that he didn't mind you telling the world :)

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  5. He is clearly a very good sport.

    Congratulations to all concerned on the nuptials!

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  6. Being a nicely brought up sort of person, what he had been wearing (or not) under his kilt hadn't even entered my mind. Well now I know. Thank you so much for that information!

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  7. Makes perfect sense to me.....

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  8. WooHoo! Men in Kilts!!! Please thank son for letting you blog about his wedding pants. What a fun story. Is there a picture of them? The only picture I can see is of the bride and groom dancing. A Man in Kilt!!!!

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  9. Your son has a good sense of humor! Congratulations to him and his bride on their wedding.

    I was at a Celtic festival here in the U.S. last week. I saw a t-shirt for sale that said "It's a kilt. If I were wearing underwear it would be a skirt." What do those of us in the U.S. know about these things?

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  10. Fascinating....how the other half live. I guess Scotland is way too cold for the men to wear budgie smugglers.

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  11. Well, my husband was a member of a pipe band for years, and before a gig the band leader would walk around with a mirror on a stick and inspect all the band members. Any bagpiper caught wearing underpants was immediately thrown atop a table by the other band members, said underpants were removed by force, and so... no underpants were ever worn by any kilt-wearing bagpiper in THAT band, anyway.

    My husband wore a kilt at our wedding too, and I'm here to tell you.... NO UNDERPANTS! YAY!!!

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  12. I loved your story, but I think I'd have to keep my eyes skyward if I ever went to a Scottish wedding, as would rather not find out whether the men had pants on, wedding ones or otherwise!

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