Weddings are my astrology charts, my fortune cookies, and my I Ching. I learn something from each one, and sure enough, if I don't learn it the first time, another wedding and another marriage will roll along, to remind me that no one under twenty-five should be allowed to marry; that divorced parents who cannot behave at the wedding will get worse, not better, without a firm talking-to; that people who marry out of boredom and fear get more of the same. I was the bridesmaid for my sister when I was sixteen, and learned two things: Do not voice your doubts to the bride or groom as the clergyman is clearing his throat. Also, do not make sixteen-year-old girls wear Minnie Mouse white gloves and dresses that match the tablecloths. (I've been wanting to mention this for some time.)
I was a bride myself with the most perfect wedding weather of all time and can only say that a picture-perfect wedding does not a perfect marriage make. Also, if your mother wants you to wear white, you probably will. (What color is it? I asked her. Oh, she said, cotton color. Beige? I said. Sort of beige, she said. Sort of a beautiful, sun-bleached, very light beige.)
I was a mother of the bride and can speak well for navy silk and false eyelashes. I can also speak to the sense in choosing the squat, stinky citronella candles over the more lovely luminarias (we didn't and the entire bridal party was covered in dime-sized mosquito bites) and to the wisdom of choosing a caterer who knows your world (“Christians?” she said. “Plenty of booze.” “Jews?” she said. “Double the hors d'oeuvres.”) And although the wedding at which I was a bride did not last, it did give us our daughter, a beautiful bride, and it did give me and her father the chance to shed tears of joy, side by side, and to appreciate each other.
Weddings are not marriages, and I wish they were. Weddings are to marriage as a single bamboo shoot is to a jungle, as a seashell is to the ocean floor: nice enough, not unrepresentative, and almost totally irrelevant. Marriage is all about the long road, about terror and disappointment, about recovery and contentment, about passions of all kinds. Weddings are about a party—which is why I think marriage should be approached with blinking yellow lights, orange safety cones, and all other signs of great caution, and weddings should be encouraged as things apart. Why should we expect that looking pretty in white (or the flattering color of your choice) and doing a credible fox-trot has anything to do with staying calm in the face of resentful indifference, selective deafness, Oedipal disorders, or horrible stepchildren? It should be enough, it seems to me, to look as good as one can and enjoy the party. Brides who cannot enjoy their own weddings are either possessed of too much knowledge (the marriage is a mistake) or too much something else (like women who scream when the bouquet has one too many sprigs of baby's breath). I wish that crazy, over-the-top weddings (doves dyed pink, twin elephants, wedding favors from Gucci, and Handel's “Water Music” played by Yo-Yo Ma) led to marriages that were extravagant celebrations of love, that the excess foretold a lifetime of generosity, sensuality, and matching elephants of kindness and loyalty. I wish that simple little weddings, barefoot in a cranberry bog, with ten friends as witnesses, would lead to a life in which less really is more and stays that way. Marriage requires common sense, self-awareness, compatible senses of humor (Jackie Mason will not be happy with Oscar Wilde, although Bernie Mac might be), compatible sex drives, and enough, but not too much, perseverance. Weddings, on the other hand, offer just a day's happiness, and require only a willingness to dance—even badly—and embrace the world and big love for a short time.
I admire marriages: I puzzle over them, I analyze them, I long to get it right. But I love weddings.
happily ever after
dani shapiro
The Proposal. There wasn't one. Not exactly. No bended knee. No ring buried deep in the whipped-cream topping of a chocolate mousse. Not even a candlelit dinner complete with a serenading violinist. I was thirty-four years old. My future husband, forty. We had been around the block a few times. He—with girlfriends on every continent— had developed a bit of a reputation as a toxic bachelor. One of those guys who was never going to settle down. And me? I wasn't exactly a good bet, myself. Twice married—each marriage had lasted less than a year. So it would be reasonable to think that it took many months of dating before the idea of marriage presented itself. But in fact, we both knew the second we met each other. The lunatic thought cascading through my mind the moment I met him: There you are. We were at a Halloween party, of all things at the home of a couple who has since divorced. I was not in costume, nor was my future husband. In fact, if he had been dressed up as, say, a giant tree (there was indeed a giant tree in attendance) I never would have made it past hello. I don't remember what we talked about that night. A jumble of our histories: our lives as writers, our suburban childhoods. The people—and there were many—whom we knew in common. How was it that we had never met before? Beneath all the words was a strange knowledge, solid as bedrock. You're mine. We both felt it. You're mine. He never asked me to marry him. I never said yes.
The Engagement. Having been twice married was the strangest thing about me, a major glitch on my C.V. It was very hard to explain, even to myself. I had had two big white weddings. Two engagement parties. I had gone shopping for two designer gowns. I had spent a lot of time dreaming about the wedding day and not nearly enough time thinking about the marriage. And so I didn't want to be engaged. I wanted to elope. Paris! In the springtime! I had a vision of old world romance: cobblestone streets, a magistrate's office (what was a magistrate?) Vows exchanged in a foreign language, me in a chic little dress. The two of us—alone—affirming our future. I couldn't bear the idea of floating down the aisle in a white confection. A fancy wedding—to me—equaled mistake. All surface and no depth. All pomp and no circumstance. But my husband—he who was never going to get married at all—wanted his parents there. And his siblings. He wanted our union to be witnessed by a few people he loved. And who could blame him? If his parents and siblings were going to be there, then mine had to be, too. And if our families were going to be there, well, then we had to have a few close friends, didn't we? The number swelled to twenty. Twenty people who were sworn to secrecy. It wasn't quite an elopement, but it was the closest we could manage.
The Ring. I didn't want one of those, either. Not, at least, if by the ring you mean a rock. I had already experienced the thrill of wearing a rock. The three-carat flawless emerald-cut engagement ring from my previous marriage had wound up on Forty-seventh Street in New York—the jewelry district— a bargain for some bride and groom who didn't care about its messy provenance. So together, Michael and I picked out wedding rings. Delicate platinum flowers and vines studded with tiny diamonds for me. A matte platinum band for him. The process took about half an hour.
The Dress. A little slip of nothing, a bit of ivory silk, held up by spaghetti straps. Purchased at the same store (Barneys in New York City) as the ring. One-stop shopping! I tried it on for my future husband. No superstition for me. Michael loved it, but I thought I'd bring my mother to the store to show her, too. My mother could barely contain her horror when she saw me emerge from behind the dressing room curtains. She looked me up and down, confused by the minimalist slip, designed by an intellectual Belgian. Where's the dress? So I went down to the main floor and bought a gossamer shawl, as light as air. The shawl cost more than the dress.
The Rabbi. I found her by calling directory assistance. 1-800-RABBI. I picked out a temple in a good neighborhood. Asked for the rabbi and was told there were five to choose from. I pretty much closed my eyes and pointed. I liked the idea of a woman. And I liked her name. Amy. She sounded like someone I might have gone to camp with. And she had a nice, soothing voice, warm and steady, like someone who believed in God. My own feelings about God were complicated. Did He exist? If so, was He micromanaging my life? My husband's beliefs were more straightforward: He had none. But we were both Jewish and each of us had a sentimental attachment to the rituals of our ancestors: the Hebrew blessings, the sound—like no other—of a glass
being smashed beneath the groom's heel. I wanted to be married under my dead father's tallis. Even though it had already seen a lot of action, I still believed in the power of its protection.
The Venue. As they say. Places cease to be restaurants or cafés or small inns in the country and become venues. A theatrical backdrop for the main event. We picked a small inn downtown in New York City for the ceremony: a cozy spot where elderly ladies met for tea, and a harpist sometimes played in the afternoons. For the dinner, a private dining room upstairs at La Grenouille, a venerable French restaurant about forty blocks north. The room had a towering ceiling and huge windows. I pictured candlelight, a yellow glow from the sconces lining the old plaster walls. It looked like an elaborate wine cellar. Three round tables, just enough for our number of guests. I tried to choose places that might still exist in fifty years. Places that our kids—if we had kids—might someday point out to their own kids. That's where your grandparents got married, they would say. It was permanence I was after. Gravitas. Something that felt real.
The Details. The food, the champagne toast, the floral arrangements. They were all a lovely blur. Something about pale roses, French double tulips. Filet of beef. Sole veronique. Wilted spinach or haricots verts? A cello for the ceremony. Taped music for the dinner. Cream-colored place cards. The only time in my life I have used the word “boutonniere.” Even though I had promised myself I wouldn't get carried away—even though it was a teeny, tiny wedding—I found myself debating the merits of lemon icing versus mocha. And what about the tablecloths? The tablecloths were important, weren't they?
The Photographer. I wanted images that would last. Images that would be timeless and classic, yet also somehow casual and carefree. I wanted black-and-white. Nothing posed. And so we found an advertising guy who moonlighted as a wedding photographer. His studio was full of glossy pictures that could easily have been torn from the pages of a J. Crew catalog. No stiffly smiling brides and grooms flanked by their extended families. It was hard—not to mention pricey—work, making everything look simple.
The Guests. Ah, the guests. You try deciding which of your friends make the cut when the number has to stay under twenty. It's much easier to make up a guest list of two hundred! We began with family. My mother, my half sister. Michael's parents. His brother and sister-in-law. His younger sister. That was it for family. We drew the line at aunts and uncles. Certainly no cousins. Our grandparents were all dead—a side effect of getting married so late in life. We started adding the friends. My very best friend, Betsy, and her husband, Ron. My other very dear friend, Helen, and her husband, Bruce. Our mutual friend Melanie—she who introduced us that very first, fateful night. Esther, my literary agent. Michael's pal Barry. His college friend Eddie, and his girlfriend, Kate. And his other great friend, Scott, and his wife, Becky. That was it. The whole kit and caboodle.
The Honeymoon. Paris and Provence. A safe bet, to be sure. No Tanzanian safaris for us. No exotic destination requiring malaria pills. We wanted to be alone together in the lap of luxury. Each of us harboring the sneaking suspicion that it might be a very, very long time before our lives involved Frette sheets scattered with fallen flakes from room service croissants, lazy afternoons spent reading whole novels at the prettiest infinity pool along the Cote d'Azur. We were working writers, after all. Working writers (with working writer's salaries) who might one day have children. And so we shopped for faience pottery in tiny hilltop villages. We ate langoustine at midnight. We slept all morning, the ne pas déranger sign hanging outside our door. I could go on.
The Marriage. Here is what I know, and it may be all I know on the subject of being a bride: The ring, the dress, the proposal, the place cards and flowers, the music, the minister or rabbi or justice of the peace—it will all add up to exactly nothing. There will be a moment when it's all over. A moment when, in a hungover, happy, bleary state you roll over and look at the guy next to you and think, my husband for the very first time. My husband. The words will roll over and over in your mouth, in your mind—until one day, the concept simply becomes a part of you. You are a wife. You have a husband. The two of you together make a family of two, of three, of four, or even—God help you—more. People may, from time to time, ask how the two of you met. They may ask how long you've been married. But here are some questions I've never been asked in the nine years since my wedding day: Where was the wedding? Who was the caterer? What flavor was the cake? What kind of flowers?
Happily Ever After. The dress hangs in its garment bag in our house in the country. Every once in a while I think of pulling it out and trying to wear it to some black-tie event, but after giving birth to our son, I'm afraid—very afraid—of how it will fit. The ring—that delicate platinum band of leaves and flowers—has broken four times and been sent back to Barneys to be re-soldered. The wedding bouquet dried and finally crumbled after being subjected to several moves. Rabbi Amy is a part of our lives. I called her in despair after a miscarriage. She officiated at my mother's funeral. The timeless, black-and-white photographs are still not in an album. The proofs are in a small box high up on a shelf in my office closet, waiting for me to have a free afternoon to go through them. And the guests? My mother is dead. My half sister and I no longer speak. Two out of three of my invitees—the most important people in my life at the time!—are now people with whom I exchange holiday cards. Ditto for my husband and his friends. The literary agent—let's just say we parted ways. But what I do have—after the crumbled bouquet, the fading proofs, the broken ring, the lost friends and family— is a husband. One whom I roll over and look at first thing in the morning—our middle-aged faces creased by our pillows—and think: He's a keeper.
CONTRIBUTORS
Samina Ali was born in Hyderabad, India, and raised both there and in the United States. Her debut novel, Madras on Rainy Days (Farrar Straus Giroux), chronicles a young Muslim American woman's journey to freedom and was awarded the Prix Premier du Roman Etranger 2005 Award (Best First Novel in Translation of the Year) by France and was also chosen as the finalist for both the PEN/Hemingway Award in Fiction as well as the California Book Reviewers Award. Poets & Writers named Madras as one of the Top 5 Best Debut Novels of the Year. The novel has been translated into many different languages and released around the world. Ms. Ali has been invited to lecture on the book extensively, from the University of California, Berkeley, on the West Coast to Harvard and Yale universities on the East. She is the recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation and Barbara Deming Memorial awards for fiction. Most recently, essays of hers have been included in The May Queen and Living Islam Out Loud anthologies. She has also written for publications as diverse as Self and Child magazines, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She resides in California with her son.
Jennifer Armstrong is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, where, after five years, she's still shocked to be getting paid to obsess over TV, books, and pop culture in general. She cofounded and continues to edit the online alternative women's magazine Sirens (www.SirensMag.com). In her previous lives, she was a daily newspaper reporter and trade magazine editor.
Julianna Baggott is the author of four novels, including Which Brings Me to You (cowritten with Steve Almond), and two books of poetry, most recently Lizzie Borden in Love. Under the pen name N. E. Bode, she's the author of The Anybodies trilogy, novels for younger readers. She teaches at Florida State University's Creative Writing Program. For more, visit www.juliannabaggott.com.
Amy Bloom is the author of two short-story collections (one a finalist for the National Book Award, one for the National Book Critics Circle Award), two novels, and a collection of essays. She teaches at Yale and lives in Connecticut.
Janelle Brown is a freelance journalist, writing for The New York Times, Vogue, and Self. She was previously a senior writer at Salon, covering technology, culture, and the arts; and, in the early days of the Net, worked at Wired 's online publications HotWired and Wired News. She lives in Los Angeles with her husb
and, Greg Harrison, and their very spoiled Labrador retriever, Guster.
Anne Carle has been writing professionally for seventeen years. Her writing path has led her through various nonprofit organizations, magazines, Internet start-ups, and as of late, a very large financial corporation. Carle currently resides with her partner, three dogs, and two cats in Richmond, Virginia, where they enjoy playing Scrabble, watching bad made-for-television movies, and drumming around a fire pit in the backyard.
Lisa Carver is the author of Rollerderby, Dancing Queen, The Lisa Diaries, and Drugs Are Nice. Her love life continues to be a wreck and the wedding proceedings have not gone at all as planned in the essay written for this book, but she is very happy about that, as proceedings that do go as planned upset her greatly.
Carina Chocano is a film critic at the Los Angeles Times. She has been a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly and Salon and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Bust magazine. She's also done other things, but we don't need to go into them. She lives in Los Angeles with her soon-to-be-husband and her cat, Woofy.
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