Nude nuptials
Nudist history you never thought to ask
I have been thinking a lot about weddings lately. Not mine, I was happily married 35 years ago and still am! In a bit of full disclosure, “Pastor” Olaf has officiated at three nude weddings over the recent years. I even owned the website nudeweddings.org for a while. What has made me think about weddings is that next month I have to officiate my first ‘textile” wedding, and it has caused me some consternation. Not what I will say or do—as I have often said, I have never met a podium I didn’t like—puns aside, the problem is, I don’t have a thing to wear. I guess we should all have this problem.
I got distracted thinking about when the first nudist wedding in America was. Was it in the Sixties, Fifties, or other? A couple of friends of mine, Lee and Pam St. Mary, may have had the largest nude wedding on August 23, 2003, at the Eastern Naturist Gathering in Lenox, Massachusetts, with a number just over 600. There is no official record for the largest nude wedding—so when was the first?
If you look up nude weddings, you would, in all likelihood, end up with the wrong answer. You could stumble upon a “Time” article from 1933 and run into a series of Associated Press photos that display a happy wedding party of Susie Wise and Jim Goodman, who were married at Elysian Fields on November 1, 1933. There are many articles and even one from Australia where someone was talking about it on a ship over from America, and it was put in the newspapers two months later when the “witness” arrived in Perth. It was said that the bride, adding only a diamond ring to her attire, hosted an “informal” reception afterwards. Other reports of the wedding included blurbs such as:
For altar, they chose a well beside a tree in a nudist colony near Elsinore, Calif. To perform the ceremony, they chose Rev. Clarke Irvine of the Temple of Nature Church. For their attendants, they chose James Mack as best man, Constance Alien as maid-of-honor. For wedding clothes, they chose nothing at all. Preacher Irvine mounted a box. Bride & groom exchanged their vows in the sight of Nature and a camera. Chirped happy Mrs. Goodman, before starting to dress for a honeymoon trip to San Francisco: “I married this way because I like the simplicity and freedom.”
So that was it then, the answer is November 1, 1933. Well…. no it isn’t.
The first problem with this wedding came from the Rev. Clarke Irving. Religion was not Clarke’s first calling, it was quite probably never his calling. Though he was never a legend per se, Clarke Irvine held his own during those early years in Hollywood. By the early 1920s, he counted Will Rogers, Lon Chaney, John Barrymore, and Snub Pollard among his friends. As a screenwriter, director, and reporter, he was an eyewitness to thousands of entertainment events during the early years in Hollywood. Acting and writing were not his only claims to fame, however. He also invented the world’s smallest movie camera, an item that became a status symbol among the Hollywood elite. Indeed, by 1917, Clarke seemed destined for stardom but it never happened. He went to World War I and served in the US Navy. He came home and took up nudism.
After the above reports of the wedding appeared in the newspaper, Clarke Irving became a wanted man. A man wanted by the Riverside County Sherriff’s department for questioning about his role in the ceremony.
Many began to ask if the Goodman marriage was legal, since it turned out Irving was not ordained. According to California law, marrying someone without status to do so was illegal. The county officials claimed the marriage was a sham, who reported that the couple lacked both a license and a legal officiant. But the newlyweds were not overly concerned. The bride told reporters that the couple didn’t get a marriage license because they “didn’t have time.” This was also a lie as the police department learned that Jim and Susie Goodman had actually gotten married in Portales, New Mexico, in 1927, six years earlier. In the end, no charges were filed because no crime had been committed.
The nudist wedding was just a joke, according to Susie’s 1936 divorce petition. Indeed, a news report revealed the truth behind “the country’s first nudist wedding” that very year, published on April Fool’s Day.
So that was NOT the first nudist wedding, what was then?
It turns out that on June 29, 1934, at the Century of Progress International Exhibition in Chicago (they had a nudist exhibition there with live “nudists” on display). Jean May, aged 23, married Charles Muller, both of Milwaukee, and Charles, the son of a Milwaukee brewery official, were wed in the presence only of journalists and attendants. The white-headed Percy Ward, Bishop of the Liberal Church, officiated at the ceremony, it was noted, which was performed amid papier mâché dinosaurs of the exhibit, “The World a Million Years ago.” Why dinosaurs? Why not!
It was also noted in fun prose: “The bride, blushing from head to toe, wore only a wedding ring and a smile, and the bridegroom the conventional expression of terror.”
So there you have it, June 29, 1934! It will be the answer to a trivia question you will never be asked. Now I can go on in planning my wardrobe. 🪐
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I enjoyed this interesting and very entertaining read. It's easy to understand why people would want Mr. Danielson, with his sharp wit, officiating at their weddings.
I often imagined getting married in the nude, but that didn't happen. I was married at San Francisco City Hall; I've protested naked on the building's front steps a few times, but have never been nude inside it.
I sincerely believe in the value of including nudity in life's major events... and death's events, as well. I very recently updated my will and related documents, clearly specifying that I'd prefer to die completely naked if at all feasible, and that any memorial service or celebration of life must be clothing optional. The attorney gave me a funny look, but that's been notarized and is now official.
Olaf, Thank you for the enjoyable read. William Calhoun Walker reported skinny-dipping with friends along the Hudson River in 1905. He married shortly thereafter and honeymooned in 1906 at Bernard Macfadden's Physical Culture City in NJ, which was clothing optional. The pair were active nudists setting up camps, then clubs, and eventually starting The Common Sense Club in 1919. They sent their newsletter, Common Sense, and a directory out to their over 1,000 members who lived in every state (48 at the time) and even had some international members. I have often wondered if they had a nude wedding as they were very committed pioneers in American social nakedness.