When the stage manager speaks about the wedding, he tells the audience that he cannot include every detail. He chooses the most appropriate aspects and leaves the rest to the viewers' imaginations. This technique is a miniature of Wilder's approach to the whole play. He takes a few isolated events and universalizes them. The resulting scene is typical of weddings the world over — the nervous bride and groom, sympathetic parents, suggestive wedding jests, and benign comments from idealistic wedding guests.
For George and Emily, the wedding is the high point of their lives. For the viewer, however, it is just another small-town wedding with nothing to set it apart from other similar ceremonies. Mrs. Soames, who is the gushy type, makes heartfelt comments about the loveliness of the event, but her glowing remarks fail to convince the audience that there is anything unique about this particular wedding. As the minister concludes, "Once in a thousand times it's interesting ".
In Wilder's view of life, nature is the key factor in Act II. As he observes, people are born, grow up, marry, and then die. Thus marriage is a part of the natural order of things — a logical development in the process of living. Earlier, he spoke of the usual tendency of people to live by twos. Consequently, following the birth motif of Act I, the pairing of Emily and George follows quite naturally as the central image of Act II.
