Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for January 20, 2016

As a not so long time reader of this comic, how, when, and where did Toni’s parents die?

Brad doesn’t realize this is a key aspect of marrying the perfect girl, because he’s too busy taking after Frank.

I may have somehow forgotten Toni is parentless. So who’s going to be the lucky man to give Toni away? (Theodore Roosevelt gave his late brother Elliott’s daughter Eleanor away at her wedding to distant cousin Franklin.)

Simple, minimal describes Brad.

Toni’s design does not go with her supposed personality. It’s not really practical to have a long mane of teased hair while firefighting. Wearing a ton of makeup seems more “fancy” than simple.

i’m think’n this is yet another example how the little lady is most always right.

I guess Brad wants to honor Toni big time with all the expensive trimmings. He could honor her more by understanding. Also they could build a little financial stability before a kid gets in the nest.

A local radio host once said that the size of the wedding is inversely proportional to the length of the marriage. Bigger the wedding, the shorter the marriage.

So just who exactly is paying for this big wedding that Brad wants?

He should just do a pop-up surprise wedding. Then she won’t have to plan a thing.

Does she abandon others before she imagines they will abandon her?

Other commenters have written that Brad doesn’t really “know” Toni. It appears Brad is about to find out, or be reminded of, things about Toni.And I still don’t feel this is a compatible, comfortable relationship. Good friends and colleagues? Yes. Life-time complementary companions? It’s a good thing the actual planned wedding is still almost a year away.

My GOD! A Beautiful Women that LIKES Simplicity and above ALL “ORDER??”

What the DEVIL are You WAITING for Brad??

ELOPE! Or Better Still, Lovingly Club Toni across Her and DRAG Her Off to Your Cave!!!

Elope! Elope!

… but it will probably come down to a simple wedding at the Fuse.

This is coming together nicely. Toni talks and Brad listens. When this takes place now, hopefully is will continue into their marriage.

Just to catch up a bit from yesterday:I did go back and read all, yes ALL the comments (first time I’d ever done that) and 1) thank you to those who answered/discussed the “beard” thing. I did actually try to Google it, and got squat. I guess my research skills aren’t what they used to be. ;-) 2) wow. That explains “separate beds”. And, MUST be one TIGHT friendship. I really feel for everyone involved. And hope that the gay hubby is still ok. 3) wish I had more time in my day! The comment board of Luann is pretty NEAT! Cool folks. Support. Interesting factoids. Who needs other social media??:-)Hope to be here again folks. Ttfn

Well technically, if she’s living alone, having two cereal bowls is very practical. Cuts down on clutter and unless she hosts cereal parties, there’s no reason to have a full set!

Re: Who will walk Toni down the aisle? I’d guess Mr. Gray. He seems to be the Jack-of-all-trades when it comes to fixing problems.

Simple is what I want the next time. Simple dress that I could wear again. Only about a dozen people there. No big, fancy reception. In fact, what I’d like to do is rent a suite at the ballpark and have the reception in there! Maybe even throw a little bouquet into the stands. Or I might just give it to a single girl.

My kind of girl……elope now…..

“The Beauty Of Simplicity” (♫)*“Simple Dreams” (♪)“Be Something You Love And Understand” (♪)“Nuthin’ Fancy” (♪)“Keep It Simple” (♫)“Straight Shooter” (♪)“A Simple Complication”“Optional And Void”“The Simple Truth”“Concise”“Practical”“Neat And Trim”or“The Taste Test”-*or go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=19lQKa-gvcg

As others have said over the last days/weeks….sounds like this is going to end up being a justice of the peace or elopement or very, very simple wedding at the Fuse with just family. I’m still waiting to see if Quill and LuAnn are through.

So a woman whose desires don’t match her man’s is a “control freak.” Thank you so much for that.

They will wind up at the “Fuse.” TJ caters. Mr Gray and Pru “coordinate.”

Consider yourself blessed Brad.

So grateful that I married the right guy and it wasn’t the ones who think every woman is a “control freak”.

Bingo nothing. She’s a low maintenance decent woman with common sense.

The husband of my first cousin gave me away. A couple years later, they divorced, but our marriage is still going strong — 43 years come March 10th.

Well, my question about Toni’s parents from several days ago just got answered. I do not remember knowing that they were killed in a traffic accident. Maybe this is the talk that Brad needs to hear & they will decide to elope!

freaking expensive weddings….Elope. cheaper and save the money for something useful like a down payment on a house.

One of the most expensive weddings I ever attended was also memorable for the bride walking down the aisle with a black eye the groom had given her moments before. She felt trapped, knowing the wedding was a mistake, but pressured because her father had spent so much money.

I’ve seen no other signs of Toni’s being a control freak. Indeed, she used to let Shannon walk all over her, and it was Bwad’s involvement that began moving her and Shannon’s relationship onto much more solid ground.

Do we know anything at all about Shannon’s mother? Was Fishbait ever married to her, or was she just a brief girlfriend, or what? And didn’t Shannon have a younger sibling at first?

There is such a thing as a church wedding with the minister, the bride and groom, two witnesses and no one else. No one else even has to know about it. However, in this strip no one goes to church, so they can simply elope.

Some folks just get a little stressed out by complicated arrangements. (like me) Doesn’t have anything to do with being “a control freak”. Brad should share why he likes big complicated extravaganzas. What need is being satisfied for him?

I hope, for the sake of their relationship, that they take this opportunity to learn the art of compromise. Cut out the doves and other frou frou, keep the music and dancing, etc.

For myself, I find intelligence one of the most attractive aspects of a woman—and essential in a spouse. (I’ve had only one, and for 46 years. My mother said of her, “She’s one smart lady.”

Get a clue Brad, rule number one: Keep the bride happy. No more rules.

Get with the program Brad, a wedding after all is the brides day

Simple is better. You don’t have to to a big fancy wedding.

I still think the pigeons ( doves) would have been tasty!I love squab.

“Practical” does not fit with that monster mane of hair that must require a tremendous amount of attention.

This arc is making my eyes bleed. This couple is doomed.

Chalk it up to good, old-fashioned sexism and the “We don’t want girls in the club house” attitudes of the men. Sadly, this little-boy mentality still exists today.

They already put down a deposit at the Cottage. Probably not refundable, so it would be a bad financial decision to not have the wedding at the Cottage.

Makes sense to me—why blow a wad of $$ on a wedding and wind up divorced in 3-4 years!

-Fear

Years ago, as an undergrad in the early ’70’s, I attended a university that had never admitted a woman to its law school. The first one was admitted the year I was a senior, and not only were the students nasty to her, so were the profs. At the end of the year, she left the school.

My niece is now attending that same law school, along with a number of her undergrad friends, and she is having no problem at all. It is always tough to be a pioneer…

-The type of behavior where someone has to have material goods always organized a certain way, or everything always looking the same way, and so on, is called ‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder’. And it is something that they enforce on themselves, too, not just on anyone who shares space with them. Obsessives often can’t even leave the house without double and triple checking that all the lights are turned off, the paintings on a wall are all straight, the garbage cans have been emptied, etcetera.

This is an extreme type of reaction to trying a person’s environment and it wouldn’t be surprising to find it happening to someone who was orphaned at an early age….

When my sister got married, I was supposed to be an usher at the wedding, but then our father died one month before the ceremony. I took his place as the man walking the bride down the aisle (I’m 10 years older than my sister, so it didn’t look quite so unusual as it otherwise might have). When they got to the part where they ask “Who gives this woman in marriage?” I said “Our mother and I do,” and then took my seat. The ceremony must have been good enough, since they’re still married 30 years later. Based on that precedent, I feel it would be appropriate for Jonah to be the one who gives Toni to Brad.

-The woman who left was a tough cookie; one of the things she did before law school was swim in a polluted river to collect samples of water to prove that there was contamination so the state would enforce regulations.

But basically, she decided that all the harassment (which included a lot of extra assignments that kept her up all night) were putting so much stress on her health that it wasn’t worth it…

It seems to me that they have had this conversation before. But Brad has conveniently forgotten. This does not bode well.

> My guess is that Toni walks herself down or, most likely, the walk isn’t shown at all.>Not showing it would certainly be consistent with this strip’s habit of building up to something for weeks and then glossing over it to present only the highlights (if anything at all) and jumping straight to the aftermath.

> A lot of posts have been deleted that express sheer dislike for this couple.>Deleted by whom? When?

Whaddaya wanna bet these two never get hitched? Brad’ll probably freak out over it and move to (wherever it was in South America) to find Rosa, with Gunther subsequently sweeping Toni off her oh-so-practical feet. He prefers older women, sort of thing, plus that whole scenario will take about a year to run thru one day at a time.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!.Brad is walking straight into a boring “practical” life controlled by Ms. “Minimal Options” every step of the way. After the honeymoon, he’ll find out just how minimal his options are..But this being Luanniverse, we knew that already.

This is good. Finally Brad is actually listening and paying attention to what Toni is saying as opposed to just reacting to her presence being on his ‘wedding cloud’. The Evans’ seem to want to introduce complexity, twists and turns, into relationships that were previously established instead of having everything being just linear.

“I would like to say Jonah would walk her down …”.Jonah would be a no-show – a big audition or something would come up.

I learn something new every day. Okay, sallymargaret, you should know.

Toni rules in this relationship, so one day she may simply tell Brad “We’re eloping tomorrow,” and that will be that.

Maybe the Captain gives her away. Assuming he isn’t officiating in some manner.

The sub-text to Brad’s remark in panel 3 seems to be that he has had breakfast at Toni’s abode, which also suggests that he has spent the night; so I hypothesize that they have had a more intimate relationship offscreen than what we have been allowed to see.Be that as it may, Toni’s attitude is indeed more practical than Brad’s “big wedding” fantasies, and I hope she prevails.

Boring.

At this point if Brad is truly caring, knowing now what he knows, he would say ‘Toni.. let’s just go to county clerk get the Judge to marry us and get marriage license at the same time……….’ end of story. what could be simpler.

Or “The Cereal Surreal Life”….

Most likely he’s eaten dinner at Toni’s home, and then he helped wash and dry the dishes and put them up. He therefore knows about the contents of her dish cabinet.

“Scrunchy™”

That’s so cute that you put the tm. I think it’s pretty much a generic term however.

“Most men are intimidated by beautiful women————” It is the simple law of supply and demand. There are more attractive women than good looking men. It is also the norm for sitcoms, attractive, intelligent women and dumpy, dull guys. Some of us go through a whole life without anyone ever using the adjective “handsome” (except for our wives). Oh well, it worked for Aristotle Onasis.

Lol !! :D

Wonder whatever became of Luanne? Will they change the name of this “comic” strip?

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/properties/luann/art_images/cg49f6fdb37bc6f0.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/subject/The-Firefighting-Comics-and-Cartoons-by-Luann.php&h=208&w=600&tbnid=-0P1lJaq9D5tQM:&docid=iILA71raEuQBUM&itg=1&ei=HWagVubYIILAjwPFrY7wDQ&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwim26Dxj7rKAhUC4GMKHcWWA94QMwhdKDYwNgMostly I have a problem with the lack of ponytails. Hair is very flammable.

SPOILER ALERT: .“And now for something completely different …”

All these comments and no one thought that maybe Brad wants a big wedding to show off his beautiful catch?I wonder why not, since some want to diagnose Toni as OCD. Is it OCD to try to perform routine tasks well and efficiently? Home court rules is what I see in the dishwasher cartoon.Funny irony seems to be the point of the control issues (which Shannon blows completely to shreds).Nice that Brad noticed and nice that they are talking about it. I am still happy with this couple. Completely the opposite of Quill and Luann, BTW.

There are some people who are just blah and don’t care to make memories — and subsequently realize too late that they were wrong about not doing things earlier — and sucking all the joy out of an occasion.

“We all realize that, but we also have to acknowledge that Brad has one friend. Who is he showing her off too?”.You just answered your own question:To TJ.

sallymargaret@JPuzzleWhiz“I think she’s too independent to be given away.”.The answer at our wedding was,“She gives herself freely with her parents’ blessings.”.(I didn’t like the old standards, “I do,” and, “Her mother and I.” It sounded too much like donating a slave. If we were Muslims, it would’ve made sense since that’s the thinking.)

I guess they didn’t watch M*A*S*H*?

“I know. I’ve seen your two cereal bowls.”

Is that what they were calling them in 2016?