Brides of a certain age

• Reprints

Updated: May 17, 2011 5:05AM

Statistics tell us the average age of a bride in the United States is 26. In Chicago, however, many of us probably know women who don’t marry until much later – past 40, even.

After all, a number of women spend their younger adult years building their careers. And it’s not always easy to find Mr. Right.

How do brides of a certain age celebrate their special day? What’s appropriate to wear? How many bridesmaids should they have? Is it OK to have a DJ? Do you do a bridal registry when you have dishes and other stuff for your home already? Is it OK to go all out for the big day?

Wedding planner Ali Phillips, who owns Engaging Events by Ali, says overall, such weddings are designed generally with less concern over tradition and tend to be more focused on the friends and family.

“We’ve definitely seen a shift to the celebratory side of it,” says Phillips. “The older bride is really, really focused on the experience; younger brides [tend to stick with] the more traditional.”

Some older brides just want it simple, really simple. When Mary Gabriel, 56, married her husband Chris Grill in March 2010, they went to City Hall. She wore a “nice, black pantsuit” and they had dinner at Wildfire in Glenview afterward with a couple who are close friends and were witnesses at the ceremony. The couple met at the River North bar she owns, the Shamrock Club.

“When you’re older, you don’t feel that need, that affirmation that you have to share it with everyone,” she said.

It was her second marriage and his first. Their reception was delayed until last fall because she had to have knee surgery and he had back surgery last summer, but when they finally did have it, it was 100 of their closest family and friends.

In keeping it simple, a friend who is a professional baker made an amazing cheesecake in lieu of a fancy wedding cake. “I don’t think the wedding day has to be this ‘big thing,’ ” she said.

That’s not to say the wedding and ceremony can’t have a large bridal party or lots of fancy aspects to it, however.

When Amy McCarty and Tim Mikesell planned their wedding for last fall, when they were both 41, they had only a few months to do it. Enlisting the help of Phillips, they wanted to create a classy, fun event that their friends would really enjoy

“I just wanted it to be really fun,” said McCarty, an attorney. “I really didn’t expect people to do anything they didn’t want to do — I didn’t want to turn into one of those women.”

McCarty and Mikesell got married at a church in Rogers Park and held their reception at the Hotel Intercontinental.

She admits she had a lot of bridesmaids — eight. But, two were her sisters and six others were best girlfriends, two of whom she’d known since she was 14. The groom didn’t feel the need to “match” that number, electing to have two brothers and three friends stand up with him.

For the bridesmaids, she gave them a color, a rich chocolate brown, and told them they could pick the style from J Crew that they liked best. and splurged to give each bridesmaid a pair of Manolo Blahniks to wear with their dresses — no shoe dying required.

“Everybody is different and I wanted people to feel good about themselves,” she said.

But while a younger bride might elect an open bar and a DJ to create a memorable party for younger guests, older brides may set up different accommodations, says Sarah Johnson, a planner for the Omni Chicago Hotel. Those have included a table set aside for guests’ children with coloring books, and even a room with a babysitter and TVs.

The McCarty/Mikesell reception was a cocktail hour, dinner and a live band that played throughout the evening, to encourage guests to stay after dinner. The event wound up being a huge success, McCarty says. “So many of our friends told us that they had so much fun.”

If you come across an idea in your planning and you’re unsure, here’s a rule of thumb worth following: “If you second-guess it, you probably shouldn’t do it,” Phillips says.

Tammy Chase is a local free-lance writer.