Altared

by Colleen Curran

  Later, this made for hilarious storytelling because Julie, the woman who had spent her girlhood role-playing weddings and imagining what flowers she'd carry down the aisle, got me, the woman who always made fun of her for it, to “go bridal,” when I was never the bridal type.

  Seeing my classy friends don their veils and gowns on their own wedding days always looked absurd to me, like a uniform, and not at all romantic. This might have had something to do with the fact that I had to wear a uniform to each of their weddings. In a few short months, my closet had become decorated with a rainbow of bridesmaid dresses and accoutrements. I complained to my mother about how much this was all costing me.

  “Honey, nobody I knew in the sixties had a traditional wedding,” she said. “I can't believe how many of your friends want you to wear bridesmaid dresses.” I thought about the bits and pieces I'd heard about how she married my dad in Las Vegas after a two-month trip across the country with a jaunt down to Mexico. But I didn't dare ask her for details.

  Then I met Scott. I was producing content for the relationships channel of a major women's Web site. We dispensed tips on every topic from how to “Find a Man in 30 Days” to how to “Unleash Your Inner Sex Goddess.” The punch line was that I had never had a real boyfriend. I was faking my way through “Love Lessons on Breakup Recovery” and “Reviving Your Sex Drive.” The only content I felt fully confident in writing was my “Is Divorce Holding You Back from Happiness?” quiz.

  Then Scott and I fell in love. I was twenty-six years old; he was twenty-nine years old. He met my mother. I met his father and stepmother. We flew to California and he met my father and stepmother. We flew to Florida and I met his mother. It was the twenty-first-century American meet-the-parents tour. I found a new job with a book publisher that made me happy. Being a chef, Scott also found a new job at a restaurant that made him happy. He moved into my apartment and we were happy together. It was unbelievable. I went from being the most single person I knew to being someone who used the word “we” whenever people asked what I did over the weekend.

  Two years went by and my attitude about weddings started to change. I went to a bridal shower, where I expected to initiate my normal routine of finding a seat, ordering a coffee, and drowning myself in it just to stay awake through the gift portion of the afternoon. Instead, at this shower, as the bridesmaids asked the bride-to-be to answer questions about her fiancé, I thought about how I'd answer them at My Bridal Shower. Maybe this is something women do, but I'd never done it before. It led to other strange behaviors. I'd be hanging out with Scott. He'd say something sweet. I'd think, “I want to marry this person,” and suddenly I'd wonder who would be invited to our wedding. What wedding? As I made this fictional guest list, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd be able to have both my mother and father in attendance.

  The most common question I've been asked in the twenty years since my parents divorced is, “Do you want them to get back together?” My answer has always been a definitive, “No.” The notion of wanting to marry Scott with both of my parents as witnesses seemed completely ridiculous to me. But once I started thinking about my real wedding and what it would be like, I knew I'd want both of them there.

  When Dr. Judith Wallerstein's The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A Twenty-Five Year Study first came out in 2000, I was so relieved that someone had published a tome on how much your parents' divorce can leave its mark, even years after the divorce took place. I called her to find out if it was possible that I had a delayed “child-of-divorce” reaction.

  “A lot of the youngsters say that the parents' divorce ended the childhood,” she told me. “You may have grown up feeling you haven't had as much time to play.”

  Later that year, my dad, who lives with his wife in northern California, came to New York on a business trip. Scott had just started a new job at a downtown restaurant that critics were raving about. It's an impressive, funky space, and there is a good-looking clientele and open-air seating. I took my dad there to make him proud. He's an ex-hippie who's always a little stoned, so wowing him isn't a tricky endeavor. (He once bragged to his wife on the phone about how cool it was that I took him on the subway.)

  We've lived three thousand miles away from each other since my parents' messy divorce got under way when I was nine years old. My dad moved out. My mom picked me up from a friend's house one day with an apple and a note that read: “We're moving to New York!” And we did. Any hope of a father-daughter bond was demolished.

  The court system dictated when my dad could phone me, and my mom chaperoned the calls. The joint custody arrangement dictated when I was to fly to California to see him, but it was always during school vacations. I never wanted to go. It wasn't until I turned eighteen, when the court order no longer applied, that we started to have a relationship. I called my dad from college and found a person who not only loved me, but who understood me. He told me stories about growing up in a Long Island suburb, which was an experience similar to my own. He showered me with praise. This is what dads do, I realized. I didn't want to punish him anymore. Instead, I let him in.

  That night at the restaurant Scott wanted to impress my dad, and he sent us eight courses. We had baccala (or cod cakes) on toasted Italian bread, calamari salad, and a rich mushroom risotto, all before our main courses even came out. We drank a bottle of wine. I found myself in a gastronomic coma.

  It was a beautiful late-summer night in New York, and my dad and I decided to walk off our dinner with the twenty-five-block walk back to my apartment. He told me how much he liked Scott and how happy he was that I had found someone to love and be loved by. I told him that I thought we'd get married soon. When we got to my door, I told him that more than anything I wanted him to be there when we did.

  Two months later, Scott and I were officially engaged. We talked about the options. My mother told me how much she had to spend on a wedding, and it was more than I ever expected. After doing a little research, I found out that the average wedding in New York costs $30,000. My mother's offer wasn't enough on its own. My father offered to help pay as well. But if they both contributed, one thing was certain: My mother and father would need to be at our wedding together—in one room for the first time in twenty years. I didn't know if any of us could handle that. I tried to consider our options:

  Plan two small weddings—one with Mom in New York, and one with Dad in California.

  Have one very small wedding, but choose only one parent to attend.

  Get married at City Hall—and save the money to buy an apartment.

  Throw a destination wedding with friends. No parents.

  Plan two weddings—the one with Mom would be the destination wedding, and the one with Dad would be in California because that's like another destination wedding. Still equal.

  This is where it got tricky. It felt like we were going around in circles. No matter what, options 1–5 meant I would have to choose which parent would be there for the “real” wedding. So option 6.

  Have one wedding with a $30,000 budget from my mom, my father, and some help from Scott's family as well. Invite one hundred friends and family members to serve dual purposes as company and divorced-parent buffers.

  For some reason, it seemed easier to make a decision to spend all of this money on a one-night affair if it were the only logical choice. When I told my hip colleagues at work that I was going traditional and having a real wedding, I could explain that this was The Only Way.

  But once you decide to have a real wedding, a big wedding, you become a Bride-to-Be. You buy magazines to learn how to plan what is essentially a big party. You watch any television show that mentions the word “wedding.” You ask every married person you know ridiculous questions like “Did you send save-the-date cards, and if so, do you think it's okay if they're rectangular?” You stay up too late searching Web sites about venues, menus, and hairstyles. Without ever meaning to, you become the type of woman who cries over a wedding dress on a fire escape.

 
Except I don't think that's why I was crying.

  In the four months leading up to my glorious midwinter's-night breakdown I had bargained, begged, fought, and ended up in a therapist's office with my mom to get my dad involved in the wedding. And not even that involved. I told her that he wouldn't walk me down the aisle, and we wouldn't dance together, and he wouldn't talk to any of her friends. In return for these sacrifices he would be allowed to give Scott and me a large chunk of change for the festivities and have the chance to show up. The final condition she gave me was that he had to put all the money in a bank account before we booked a venue. She wouldn't agree to come to my wedding until I promised her this was done. I was twenty-eight years old and I was in the middle. Again.

  “People think divorce begins and ends at the time of the breakup,” says Dr. Wallerstein. “Divorce goes on throughout the child's whole life. The issues go on. Every decision has to be made long distance, and a wedding brings up every one of those decisions. The child is in high sea. In an intact family, you would sit down at the kitchen table and hash it out. In a divorced family, the wedding becomes a matter of state policy.”

  Every time the planning got rough, I fell apart. All I could think was, “I-don't-even-want-a-wedding-this-is-going-to-be-a-disaster-anyway-whatamIdoing?”

  I Googled “divorced parents at wedding” to try to find a solution to my problem, but instead found a Q&A from an etiquette expert about where divorced parents should sit in the church during the wedding ceremony.

  I tried “child of divorce getting married” and found a book published by my company about getting remarried after you've been divorced and have kids.

  I lurked on the Dealing with Difficult Family Members message board on a Web site for independent-minded brides. Someone posted about her alcoholic stepfather, and others advised her to let him walk her down the aisle if it “felt right.”

  Ah, the aisle. The traditional role of the father of the bride is to walk his daughter down the aisle and “give her away.” I had bartered with my dad's role to get him invited. That was out of the question. Then, I saw another message board post from a woman who had decided she would walk down the aisle with her fiancé. I loved this idea. Scott and I would walk in together. We'd start our lives together. I'd be a feminist and a diplomat! And my dad's feelings wouldn't be so hurt.

  “But my feelings are hurt,” my mother said to me with tears rolling down her face. We were in her therapist's office again. Discussions about the wedding could no longer take place without a mediator.

  “Can you explain to Farah why it's so important for you to walk her down the aisle?” the therapist asked my mom, wiggling her toes in her Birkenstocks.

  I don't remember what she said, but I walked out of that appointment having agreed to let my mother escort me into the arms of my new husband. We'd been a team for so long. She'd raised me. She wanted the wedding to reflect that, and suddenly it seemed as though I did too. She'd taught me to do my homework when I got home from school. She fought with me through my crankiest teenage years and laughed hysterically with me about everything from made-up Scrabble words to old-time family videotapes. I may have started to have a relationship with my dad, but my mom has always been my best friend. I was choosing her all over again because I knew she realized she'd been replaced in a way, and not by an ex-husband she thought was evil but by Scott—a partner she said she was happy for me to have found.

  “Children in divorced families learn quickly that they have to adjust to different ways of being,” says Dr. Waller-stein. “They have to be chameleons. They learn to be foreign ambassadors who aim to please everyone. They don't have the sense of ‘I can be who I am.’ ”

  By the time July rolled around, my dad was back for another business trip, and Scott was working at another new restaurant getting rave reviews. It was one of those uncomfortable sticky Manhattan summer days. This restaurant was a thirty-seat noodle bar, so the three of us sat on stools together watching Scott's boss and fellow chefs plate beautiful bowls of ramen. We were no more than three feet from the action in the kitchen.

  My father was on a mission. He'd told me before he arrived in New York that he wanted to Talk About the Wedding.

  “Farah, I want to give you away at your wedding.” Scott looked up from his noodles. My father was sweating something fierce.

  “But you agreed….” I didn't know what else I could say. If I played ambassador now, my mom wouldn't come to my wedding. Why did everything come down to this minute-long walk down an aisle? I stood up and walked calmly out into the sweltering city streets. I turned the corner and tried to breathe. I couldn't. I decided it was time to call off this charade.

  Yes, I called off the wedding. Try telling people that and explaining that you're not calling off your marriage, just your wedding. They think you're hiding something. They ask questions like, “Will you give the ring back?” And you wonder if you should stop wearing it, because when people see a shiny diamond on your finger they inevitably ask you when you're getting married.

  I called in for reinforcements. My girlfriends came over the weekend after my dad left New York, and we went through the original list of options again. We decided I was making the right decision. Inviting my mother and father to the same wedding was out of the question.

  There was only one problem. Scott and I had planned a totally kick-ass party. Our wedding was scheduled for December 10 at an inn in the Hudson Valley. We'd booked a jazz band from Brooklyn led by a woman who dyed her hair bright red and sang Miles Davis as well as my favorite song from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And they included a vibraphonist. My mom and I had finally found a dress that didn't swallow me up in chiffon or satin or tulle, and it was a one-of-a-kind sample made by two men in Chelsea who gave it to me for 50 percent off the price. Not only did I love it, I looked thin in it. We were having an ice-cream-sundae bar.

  And we wouldn't get any of our deposits back.

  “So call your mom's bluff,” my friend Andrea told me. “She's not going to really not show up at your wedding.”

  “Tell your dad he's not walking you down the aisle and he's gotta get over it,” Jamie said.

  “You can't cancel your wedding because of your parents!” many people said.

  “My mom thinks you're right to call it off,” my friend Jen countered. “You're spending too much money to throw a wedding that might turn into a disaster.”

  I probably asked too many people what they thought, and the one person I wasn't asking was Scott. Somewhere in the middle of my mom and my dad, I'd forgotten about him. When we finally talked about the situation, he was practical. He thought the twenty grand still left in the wedding bank account would be best spent on a down payment on our first home. He also didn't want to see me hurt.

  “I just…I really want to have our wedding, though,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said. “And I don't think I care if either of them is there.”

  I may have been lying to myself, and Scott may have known it. But that didn't matter. For the first time in twenty years, I realized my mother and father would never speak to each other. They would never understand why this upsets me so much, but it doesn't matter. I was done with the tears. I was mad at them for making this wedding so difficult.

  “Scott, I want to have a WEDDING!” The anger felt so much better than trying to make anyone happy.

  My parents didn't speak to each other at the wedding. My mom ignored my dad's side of the family. My father was nervous and awkward around her side. And none of it mattered.

  Something magical happened. First, it snowed twelve inches on December 9. Big white fluffy flakes that stuck. We were in a winter wonderland, and all of our friends were there. My mom “gave me away” in the best possible fashion—when we got to the chuppah she beckoned for Scott to come take my hand and gave him a warm, welcoming smile. Scott delivered vows that made me fall in love with him all over again. At the reception, everyone twirled me around during our jazz ba
nd's version of the horah, even my dad. Later, the DJ played the Beastie Boys, the White Stripes, Bowie, Def Leppard… there was a sing-along to “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles. My hair looked really healthy. I lost those last five pounds. I let go of my illusions about my parents. I realized that they don't have to reconcile in order for me to be happy. I found happiness in a more likely way; I married a man I love.

  my mother's wedding, myself

  From City Hall to Having It All

  gina zucker

  I crashed my mother's wedding. Before I go further I want to state up front that I love my mother. She buys me goofy socks and has nursed me through a thousand heartaches, and I am forever grateful to her. But she didn't tell me about her wedding. The only reason I did find out about it—just in time to crash it—was that my stepsister-to-be called me.

  Ann's call came at work on a winter morning. At first I thought someone had died. My future stepsister and I liked each other but we rarely spoke on the phone. Although her father, Mannie, had lived with my mother for twenty-four years, Ann and her brother had grown up mostly with their mother. We were at different stages of our lives. Ann was thirteen years older, married, with kids, and spoke to her parents voluntarily and often, whereas I, in my twenties, avoided communicating with relatives as a rule. I had important things to do, such as drinking, meeting boys, hearing bands play in bars, and cultivating a writer's persona while doing as little writing as possible. So, Ann knew about the wedding; I didn't.

  The gist of our conversation went like this:

  ANN: Did you buy your plane ticket?

  ME: Plane ticket?

  ANN: To Burlington. They're getting married at City Hall. Tomorrow.

  ME: Who?

  ANN: Daddy and your mom.

  ME: (Dumbfounded silence.)

  My mother could at times be circumspect about her private life, and I wasn't the easiest person to reach, but the fact that she appeared to be sneaking in a marriage without notifying me came as a shock. I had been raised by her and Mannie, after all, and in their decades together I'd heard nary a peep about nuptials. Plus I was her only child. How could she have kept this from me?