Mock weddings — folk dramas featuring gender-bending, cross-dressing, and general hilarity — became fixtures at bridal showers on the prairies in early twentieth century. By the 1950s, the girls who had staged these parodies of married life had become, we hope, mature women enjoying late middle age with their partners. The mock wedding then was reinvented as a fixture in wedding anniversary celebrations staged for popular couples, particularly in small towns, where people were accustomed to homegrown entertainment.