Zelda Sayre Gets Married
TO F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, fEATURED iN tWO pREVIOUS pOSTS
One hundred years ago today … Zelda Sayre, having traveled by rail from Montgomery, Alabama, having arrived in New York the previous day and checked in to the Biltmore Hotel, married Franklin Scott Fitzgerald at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The timing, soon after Fitzgerald’s first published fictions, was no coincidence; Sayre’s family had withheld permission until seeing evidence that he could support them via writing.
The wedding has been much chronicled. Marion Meade offers this lively report in her Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin:
At noon the wedding party gathered in the vestry of St. Patrick’s. Zelda, carrying a bouquet of orchids, wore a dark blue suit and matching hat trimmed with leather ribbons. The attendants were Scott’s best man, Ludlow Fowler, and Rosalind Smith, the matron of honor, and her husband. Still to appear was Zelda’s third sister, Clothilde, who was coming from Tarrytown with her husband, John Palmer. But Scott began to grow restless after a few minutes of waiting. Before anybody realized what was happening, he impatiently brushed off Zelda’s protests and hurried the priest into performing the ceremony. By the time Clothilde and John had arrived, it had ended. Worse yet, Scott had neglected to plan a luncheon. There was no reception of any kind, not even a wedding cake to slice. The bridal couple simply turned and marched away from the cathedral, vanishing into the Easter crowds on 5th Avenue. (32)
Sayre would eventually memorialize the spot, and pay tribute to one of NYC’s busiest thoroughfares, in her painting “Fifth Avenue,” which highlights Saint Patrick’s.
Zelda Fitzgerald, née Sayre. Undated. Printed in Rachel Kester, “The Hidden Artwork of Zelda Fitzgerald,.” Vintage News 19 February, 2019.
The painting was never exhibited or made public during Sayre’s lifetime, which is in keeping with her biography. By the time of the marriage, she was already more than a muse to Scott; she was a model for his characters and a source for his turns of phrase. She would eventually become his chief reader as well, as well as a productive writer and artist in her own right, but it took decades for her role in his work, and for her own writing and painting, to be acknowledged.