GRANDIOSE: “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” goes into the closed world of over-the-top unions.
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I’m in love and the wedding is Sunday. Well, what I mean is that’s when TLC’s new reality show, “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding,” debuts.
And it’s one heckuva fascinating look into a world and a culture with which most of us have little or no experience.
In addition, this show is a TV rarity — a reality show that does not create fake situations in order to create fake drama.
Right now, more than one million Gypsies live in the United States — with a large percentage living under the radar.
You’ll learn that, despite the provocative outfits the girls wear, they are not even allowed to talk to boys except at parties and not allowed to kiss before marriage — which is good, since they are often married as young as 14.
Couples usually meet at a party, in which a girl will be presented in order to find her spouse. Thus, the title of the show.
Each week, we’re taken into the lives of a either a girl about to be married or a family planning a party where the daughter is done up to the nines in order to attract a mate.
There are two types of Gypsy populations in the US — the “travelers,” who often live in elaborate trailers despite earning big bucks in the road-paving business and the Romanies.
You will be let into their closed world and meet a non-Gypsy designer, Sandra Celli of Boston, who is the go-to dressmaker for these teen brides and young girls grooming to become brides.
These aren’t just ball gowns they create — these are more like ball-and-chain gowns, weighing up to 90 pounds with trains that require half a football field in fabric, often costing about $10,000.
By 17, a girl should be married to a good Gypsy boy with the first baby on the way.
The woman are stunningly beautiful and the men macho-hot.
Just don’t try marrying in yourself. “Gorgas, (non Gypsies),” according to one dad, bring “filth and smut.”
Still, I’m smitten.