After the marriage, Marsha moved out of her parents' home and into Ted's apartment; she added her own decorative touches and brought life to their dreary place.
Throughout her travels, she collected paintings, artifacts, and mementos, which adorned their living room and bedroom; she even converted one of the bedrooms into an art gallery.
If her husband had any appreciation for her decorating abilities, he never said a word.
Amazed at her work, his sisters requested that she give their apartments a face-lift, and she agreed. For the next few months, she was adding her artistic expertise to their rooms. When he saw his sisters' quarters, it got him thinking as to how he could make extra money from his wife's talents.
Since the couple did not have a proper wedding ceremony, Marsha decided to have a belated reception and celebrate their approaching one-year anniversary. She could not decide whether to have the reception in their courtyard or at a popular catering site. One of her father's associates owned an elaborate banquet hall.
Her sister-in-laws thought having the event at the hall was the grandeur way to go, but Ted made it very clear that the cash flow was limited for such an extravagant affair. The income from rents had to go back into the property for upkeep, taxes, utilities, and other expenditures.
Marsha decided to foot the bill for the gathering. To avoid any type of fuss, she did not want to ask her parents for assistance and went to the bank to withdraw enough money from her trust fund to put a down payment on the dining room.
Ted showed very little interest during the planning stages of the pending affair. His wife and sisters took care of those details. It took about three months to make all of the final preparations. The function was to take place on a Saturday evening from 6:00 p.m. until midnight.
Over three hundred and fifty invitations went to family, friends, and business associates; they had three weeks to respond. Nearly all of the invitees answered yes.
For the gala, Marsha had her gown made by a well-known designer, who lived a couple of blocks from her parents.
Ted's sisters were supposedly financially strapped and could not afford to have their gowns custom-made, but their sister-in-law took care of that.
Because of time constraints, she took the sisters to a high-end dress shop. Of course, they each chose the most expensive gown in the shop, costing nearly one thousand dollars each. They were going to be the belles of the ball and the center of attention not their sister-in-law.
A month before the affair, Marsha took her husband to an exclusive men's shop to have his tuxedo tailor-made, which was a perfect fit. He was now ready to make his introduction to the upper crust of society.