Double weddings are twice the fun of one

Susan and Amy Madsen have been best friends since they were little, when they traipsed around their Murray neighborhood selling leaves and rocks door-to-door. Susan was the bold one who walked right up and made the sales pitch. Amy would pretty much just stand there, idolizing her big sister's marketing strategy.

Because they were sisters and best friends, they dreamed one day of having a double wedding."I think it's every little girl's dream," says Cathy Woods, manager of Mary's Bridal shop in Holladay. The logistics of life, however -- the timing of falling in love and getting engaged at the same time as a sister or best friend, of finding husbands who would also agree to a double wedding -- usually work against it. Plus, by the time those little girls grow up, they often decide they don't want to share the spotlight with another bride. The upshot is that there are only a handful of double weddings a year in the Salt Lake Valley.

Most double weddings involve sisters or twins. The Seven Oaks Reception Center's most unusual double wedding was for a brother and sister from India, each entering into an arranged marriage.

The secret to a successful double wedding, says Jan Gatrell of Heritage Gardens Reception center in Sandy, is brides who have similar tastes and can compromise when their tastes are different. There is always the thorny question, for example, of Your Colors.

Gatrell remembers one double wedding where one bride wanted the elegant look of black and white, and the other bride wanted "bright, fun colors." Gatrell solved the dilemma by putting the brides in opposite corners of the reception center, and the parents of the brides at the guest-book desk. "I think the parents were the ones who wanted the double wedding and kind of imposed it on the sisters," she says.

Not so with Susan and Amy Madsen. Their mom says they even played "double wedding Barbie," but Susan and Amy aren't owning up to that. What they do remember is thinking how romantic and fun it would be to share their wedding day with each other. The dream resurfaced last summer when both girls got engaged within one week of each other -- Susan to Cabe Cowan, Amy to Marvin Goeckeritz.

"All of my friends said, 'How can you share that day?,' " says Amy. "I always say, 'It is a special day if I get to share it with my sister.' "

"It takes a certain kind of friendship to make it work," agrees Susan. "My advice is: Don't be selfish, and make it fun. I think a lot of people get wrapped up in me, me, me. We decided from the beginning that we're just going to have fun with it. It doesn't have to be perfect."