WEDDING DRESSES
Leather
Word Count 944
In the 1980’s I was living in New York City, walking around in crotch-grazing mini-skirts styled with big, cheap scarves I found at a store called Reminiscence that I twisted and tied into halter tops. In the fall, as the weather turned, I found myself staring longingly at the gay guys dressed in leather parading up and down Christopher Street. I liked the look. I wanted it.
Damascus Next Door
Word Count 706
When my daughter Cassie was six, it was clear she needed alone time with me apart from her four-year-old little sister Penelope. I booked a babysitter and told her we could do anything she wanted. Then I tossed out a few ideas. We could catch a matinee and eat a big tub of popcorn. Or paint tea cups at the pottery studio. Or hunt for fun rhinestone clip-on earrings at the thrift shop.
“You said we could do what I wanted to do,” Cassie said.
“Well, what do you want to do?” I asked.
“I want to go to the Middle Eastern shop to try on dresses,” she said.
Better Suited
Word Count 1,057
I brushed past racks of linen blazers and sequined gowns at Lord & Taylor, feeling rudderless. I wasn’t exactly browsing. I was there to shop for a dead woman.
I’ll bring a suit for her, I had said. Will she need shoes?
Yes, the funeral director answered.
What about undergarments? I asked. A bra? Underwear? He paused for a moment.
Yes. Bring them. Treat this like it was any other ordinary day.
At the department store, I absentmindedly felt gabardine hems and three-button cuffs. What was I shopping for? Eternal comfort? A good first impression for Dolores in the afterlife?
The Lei
Word Count 320
I did not want a wedding. Let me start there. I don't like to dress up, nor do I like crowds or people looking at me. I’m not a fan of organized religion, and most pomp and ritual strikes me as an attempt at indoctrination. I begged my fiance to elope, but it was not to be.
Sacrificial Gowns of the Ancient Aztecs
Word Count 1,310
“Well, you certainly cannot wear white,” my mother had whispered. I remember wondering whether the saleslady had heard her. It was 1960, I was eighteen, it was a shotgun marriage. We picked out a gray dress. I think it had long sleeves, but I'm not sure. In 1970 I got married again, but I don’t remember what I wore. Nothing special. We did it at the county clerk’s office. Fast. He had never been married and I had three kids, I think I was afraid he’d chicken out. A thousand years went by. The third time I wore white. Because why the fuck not.
After a solid half-hour ignoring me, the salesgirl at Luv Bridal asks, “Um, yeah, what can I help you with?”
I look around the store at nothing but white, eggshell, and cream wedding dresses in satin, lace, and crinoline.
“I need something for a funeral…”
No reaction. We are not here to have fun.
A History of Love
Word Count 716
Since both my marriages are long over, thoughts of my wedding attire emerge draped in a veil of nostalgia, though in fact the pieces themselves are in my closet upstairs, were I inclined to pull them out and marvel that I ever fit into them.
Hemmed In
Word Count 221
My wedding dress was made of two layers of crepe de chine that fell beautifully, as they say in the fashion world. It did bear a slight resemblance to a nightgown but that didn’t bother me. The clerk at the Barneys store on Madison Ave -- a bald black guy in a suit a size too small (that was a look in those days) was so high it took him ten minutes to type in the numbers of my mom’s credit card. Sorry, sorry, he kept muttering. Well, I thought, this is memorable!
The Weight of Marriage
Word Count 308
When my father saw me moments before I wed my first husband, he asked if I intended to walk down the aisle in my underwear. I thought my Laura Ashley cotton bustier, white cotton shorts, and cotton jacket struck a jaunty tone. My mother had already instructed me that under no circumstances should I take the jacket off. “Your upper arms.” she had said, raising her eyebrows while slowly shaking her head.
Vera Wang(ish)
Word Count 278
My mother sits in a velvet armchair. She’s not often happy: her feet hurt, her backaches, she’s a perpetual insomniac. But happy is what I recall most about her that day. A close friend suggested we try Vera Wang on Madison Avenue for my wedding dress. It’s 1992. I had no idea we’d end up in such a “posh” place, as my mother put it when the saleswoman invited her to relax in the velvet armchair.
Why Knot
Word Count 104
“Well, you certainly cannot wear white,” my mother had whispered. I remember wondering whether the saleslady had heard her. It was 1960, I was eighteen, it was a shotgun marriage
No Dress
Word Count 254
I didn't have a wedding. We were married by a Justice of the Peace, in her chambers, in the courthouse in West Haven, CT. I hadn't planned on getting married, but it was happening anyway. I'd just had a baby not even two weeks earlier and he was our only guest. My husband chose the date for our wedding without even consulting me as he pored through his Filofax.
Veiled
Word Count 161
I didn’t wear a veil at my first wedding because of what happened when I went shopping for one with my best friend, Humphrey, a gay man. He thought I was mad to get married and found the veil shopping ridiculous. He was a rather wild-looking, long-haired fellow whom the salesladies figured was my fiance.
Mail Order Bride
Word Count 291
The second time I wore my wedding dress, I was about to get divorced.
Twenty-three years had passed since I’d uttered the traditional Hebrew words “Ani le dodi, ve dodi li”–I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine—under the huppah while my Norwegian non-Jewish parents took in all the unfamiliar rituals. My mother bought the full length, Laura Ashley cotton brocade dress in London, where it cost a few hundred dollars less than in Oslo, and carried it in her hand luggage to New York.
Dress of Dreams
Word Count 360
Six months before I divorced my first husband, I joined Weight Watchers, where I lost 270 pounds. I liked to joke that 220 of it was my cheating husband. One day, I went shopping with my dad’s wife where I tried on my first ever size 8 dress. Everything about it was perfect.
It was a navy blue cotton brocade, tea-length dress by Scott McClintock. The neckline was a five-inch pleated band that wrapped around both shoulders with gathered fabric that rose at the left breast. The sleeves were tight and long, the waistline was pointed. The skirt was full and had netting underneath to help it billow out.
The Hat Was Full Price
Word Count 165
The dress itself was discounted. I hadn’t earned full price, my mother said. (Not marrying a doctor. Not marrying a lawyer. Marrying, instead, an artist. Marrying uncertainty and another culture.) There, in the back of the fancy shop, it hung, the place where ill-fitting dresses went to die.
The Bride Wore Cream
Word Count 232
I bought her off a Filene’s rack for ninety bucks at the Fox Run Mall. She wasn’t white. But creamy and knee-length. To describe the rest of her, I have to look her up. I’m not a seamstress or designer or painter or one who can sketch a recognizable woman’s form. My form was in tiptop shape: five feet, five and three-quarters inches, 124 pounds, miles of road in my cyclist legs. It’s possible I’ve never looked better.