When you're 5 and read about Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, you wonder what they do going to parties, and you think they must know something you will never know in all your life.

The wonderment was Karen Black's, and this month she finally knew. In Franklin Canyon, a primeval forest near Beverly Hills, the 32-year-old Illinois-born star of Day of the Locust was married in a celebration of their own design to L.M. "Kit" Carson, 33, an aspiring writer-filmmaker from Texas who claims kinship to his legendary frontier namesake.

It was an eclectic event. The invitation included an erotic lyric by 17th-century poet John Donne ("To His Mistress Going to Bed") imprinted over an artistic rendering of the American flag. The ceremonial procession began at a foggy, frigid 6 a.m., but the army of parking valets had not received the last of the 330 guests until well after the service and champagne-and-crepe breakfast. The bride (though she had been previously married to psychologist Charlie Black and actor Skip Burton) was in traditional white. The strolling string players were in white tie. But the preacher wore a sort of blue golf shirt, and the groom was duded up in cowboy boots, three-piece suit and hat, which he flung into the air (Carson was himself once an actor) when the "I do's" were done.

Kit met Karen last January in Beverly Hills on an interview for Oui magazine, then closed the deal (just as co-star Omar Sharif was circling in) on the Vienna location of her next release, Ace Up My Sleeve. "We had a whirlwind romance throughout Europe," reports Carson. "But it wasn't pure romance. We were traveling with her nine cats."

As probably the most employed actress in Hollywood (17 pictures in eight years), Black returned to work the day after the wedding to complete Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot. Next comes a Gothic chiller, Burnt Offerings, with Bette Davis. Then, Black may take time off for the child she suspects is on the way. In February she plans to return to work on a screenplay by Kit. That, actually, would be their second movie collaboration. Both bride and groom were wired for sound, and two movie crews recorded the nuptials. It was the sort of excess that Debbie and Eddie would have appreciated.