CHAPTER 7
“You’re Wearing White?”
Having Your Wedding, Your Way
He just proposed—and you said yes. You’re both giddy with joy. When you share your news, some people may be surprised, most will be delighted—and some might think you’ve been married all along!
By now you know we’re shamelessly romantic (and just plain shameless). Which explains why we encourage you, whether or not you’re yet engaged, to shamelessly dream your wedding dreams. To help those dreams along, we’ll share a wealth of wedding ideas from fellow grown-up brides, from the elegantly simple to the simply sumptuous. What will you choose for your celebration? Dinner and dancing by candlelight? A Buddhist-accented garden party? A picnic with guests in Bermuda shorts? A bash with gospel singers? Our brides have been there, done all that.
We’ll also help you imagine who you’ll be on that special day: perhaps a queen in white satin and Belgian lace, a goddess in a crystal-studded gown, a vintage vision in a 1920s frock, a cutie in a sundress, or a movie star in sleeveless, beaded gray chiffon (this bride let her hair match her dress, not bothering to cover the gray). Our brides looked and felt like these, and more.
We’ll reveal how couples used their grown-up smarts to navigate common speed bumps on the way to the big day, keeping their spirits high and their love at the helm. Here’s to the wedding of your dreams!
We’re Engaged!
I’m engaged, and I’m thrilled, excited…and a little scared! I’ve wanted this for a long time—so why do I have the jitters?
You’re not alone! As one bride wisely said, “When a man asks you to marry him when you’re twenty, you say, ‘Why not?’ When a man asks you to marry him when you’re forty, you ask, ‘Why?’”
We wouldn’t be writing this book if there weren’t tons of fabulous reasons to be married—and if we didn’t believe that grown-up women should always ask “Why?” when making important decisions about their lives.
Some of our brides quickly knew they’d found Mr. Right. One woman in her sixties met and got to know her future husband in a class they took together: “On the last day, he said, ‘I’d hate to see us lose touch with each other. How about dinner sometime soon?’ By the third or fourth such date, we found ourselves agreeing by the end of the meal that we’d get married. We knew each other’s stories pretty well by then, and we both felt great comfort with each other.”
More often, it took the brides we interviewed a bit of time to get to “I do.” Sometimes there were logistical reasons: “Gene’s divorce took five years, but within a day of getting the divorce he asked me to marry him.”
No doubt about it, grown-up life can be complex. “Perry and I dated for seven years before marrying, and we didn’t live together,” Natasha told us. “When we met, he was forty-six and had two daughters just out of college; I was thirty and my daughters were seven and five. The advice Perry got from friends and from his family counselor was to take it slowly and make sure he wanted to raise two more children basically from the start. The advice I got from friends and family was quite different. They were worried Perry might never commit to marriage and I’d ‘waste the best years of my life.’ We both agreed living together with two young children wasn’t an option. When we finally married, everyone was thrilled. His friends were convinced he was making a good decision; my friends were happy I’d found someone who took such good care of me and my girls and made me so happy.”
Remember Tish and John, flying between cities on weekends? Talk about a logistical nightmare! “As time went by, it became obvious that John and I couldn’t keep the airlines in business forever,” Tish says. “We were scheduled to take a trip to Venice together and I was very excited to be able to spend some time with John without having to jump back on a plane on a Monday morning.
“On our second day in Venice, we came back from shopping and I noticed an orchid on the bed and thought how nice it was of the hotel to do that for all their guests. Then I saw a big bouquet of red roses in the corner of the room. Suddenly John was down on one knee asking me to marry him. I started crying and just kept saying yes over and over. He’d brought an engagement ring with him and later said he’d been a nervous wreck because he was afraid he’d lose it.
“We called my parents, his parents and anyone else we could think of. It was a deliriously happy time.”
Frequently couples are on different emotional timetables. Eventually they sync up if the vibe is right. Here’s how it went with Pat and Mark:
“We dated for two years and I was thirty-eight when we got engaged. It happened in Paris—my favorite city. But Paris almost didn’t happen! I was overseeing a major television project there and we planned to sightsee for a few days beforehand. And in my mind I had a huge romantic fantasy of going to Paris with someone I loved—him. I didn’t expect him to propose, but the trip had become a big deal.
“Close to our travel date, we’re on the phone, and he says, ‘I’m not sure I can go to Paris. Work is very busy.’ All my alarm bells went off!
“Now, I was never, ever assertive in a romantic relationship (remember Mr. Unavailable?). But this man and this relationship were different. Most of all, I was different. I knew he was busy, but I also knew he could make it work. I told him, ‘If you don’t come to Paris with me, I hear what you’re saying.’ ‘I’m just busy,’ he said. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s very important to me that you come, and what I hear you saying is that our relationship is not going anywhere.’
“He came. A couple of days before my project started, my heart was set on taking a day trip to see the roses in the beautiful gardens of the painter Claude Monet. Mark was equally set on our taking a dinner cruise in Paris that evening. At the train station we discovered we’d been given the wrong train schedule: if we went to the gardens, we wouldn’t be back in time for our dinner cruise.
“I don’t cry easily, but I was so disappointed that I cried in the train station. ‘All right,’ Mark said, ‘we’ll skip the dinner and just go to the gardens.’ That’s what we did, and I thought it was one of the best days of my life.
“The next evening, after a romantic dinner, Mark insisted we have champagne at the restaurant perched atop the Eiffel Tower. At the private entrance, the attendant asked if we had a dinner reservation. ‘No,’ Mark says. Another snag: ‘It is required, monsieur.’ ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go up and enjoy the full moon.’
“So there we are at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and Mark turns to me and blurts out, ‘Ryan (as he calls me), will you marry me?’
“Apparently, after that predeparture conversation, Mark was worried I might call it quits, and he was planning to propose—first on the dinner cruise and then over champagne at the Eiffel Tower—but his plans kept going awry. Standing there among all the tourists, I started crying (now from happiness) and said, ‘Oh, I’d love to.’
“We still joke about it: I wanted to marry Mark so badly and I could have been engaged two days earlier if I hadn’t burst into tears in the train station! But in the end I had it all: the roses, a full moon over Paris and a proposal from my go-to guy, who finds a way to make things work even when his best-laid plans don’t. It was one of those unforgettable weeks that you put in your emotional bank and draw on when you need it.”
Of all the brides we know, Ann and Irv were the biggest slowpokes to get on the same page engagement-wise. “Although we knew almost from the beginning (within a month for Irv and within a year for me) that we’d always be together, we were both gun-shy about marriage. First he wanted to and I didn’t; then I wanted to and he didn’t! Although we were constantly together, we kept separate apartments— I wasn’t ready to take the big step of moving in together.
“One summer Irv was talking about buying a house. I was ready to marry, but he hadn’t proposed. I told him the house decision was his. The message was clear: It’s your house, not ours.
“One evening after a phone call from the real estate agent, he said to me, ‘I’m not going to buy a house. But I want to marry you.’ I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ We just couldn’t seem to get it together!
“The next night, as we were sitting on the couch, he suddenly got down on one knee and said, ‘Would you do me the honor of being my wife?’ Well, of course I would! After ten years of hesitations about being married, finally it just seemed silly not to be. We were thrilled when we finally tied the knot. So were our friends and families: at our wedding when I welcomed our guests, I said, ‘I know some of you are as surprised as we are to be here,’ and everyone laughed!”
It’s natural to be nervous about taking this big step. Talk it through together and be patient with each other. It’s all part of combining complex lives.
WHY THEY WED
“Getting married was honoring our relationship. When we did, suddenly everything was different. No longer was it ‘his’ and ‘mine’; it was ‘ours.’”
“We didn’t have children and didn’t plan to, but I really believe in marriage. I enjoy being married. I feel more secure being married. And I love having a partner in everything.”
“There was no real reason for us to get married, but now that we are, we’re so much more of a couple: he has my back and I have his. We are totally a team.”
“When we met with the minister, he suddenly turned to Matthew and said, ‘Why are you getting married again?’ Matt said without missing a beat, ‘Because I can’t imagine life without her. I want to protect her and support her.’”
What’s an appropriate length of time for an engagement?
What’s appropriate is whatever works for your man and you. One bride insisted on a yearlong engagement. It had been a long-distance relationship, and her previous marriage had wounded her emotionally and financially. She needed time to feel sure of this new love. But another bride, also remarrying, laughed about her whirlwind engagement: “When I called the caterer in June for an August date, he thought it was a shotgun wedding!” Tish, too, was ready to marry after John popped the question: “We got engaged in May and married in October. I think long engagements give couples too much time to obsess. I’d say to older brides, ‘Figure out who you want in your wedding party and where you want it to be, order your invitations and do it!’”
If you feel sure you’ve found the right mate, your engagement will be a whirlwind time of joyful anticipation. One bride put it well: “Once the planning starts, there’s no time to keep thinking about whether you’ve made the right choice. I was continually aware during the planning that my fiancé was the only element of the wedding that I was absolutely sure about, and what a good thing that was!”
Sharing Your Joy
We each have a large circle of friends, family and coworkers. How should we go about telling everyone?
Sharing news of your engagement enhances your happiness by spreading it to the world. Most people start with family (especially their children), then friends, then coworkers.
GET THE WORD OUT!
Make sure the gossip mill doesn’t inform intimates before you do!
Some single friends may need a little time to adjust to your good tidings. One bride recalls, “My oldest friend sounded sort of shocked and got off the phone quickly. We’d gone through many relationship ups and downs together, and she didn’t have a man in her life at the moment. She couldn’t have been happier for me later; she just had to get used to the idea.”
A single girlfriend’s happiness for you may be bittersweet: she wants to meet someone she’s crazy about, too. You’ve been there, so you can understand how she feels. One bride told us, “It was difficult to announce my engagement to my singles group, but when I wore my engagement ring to a holiday party, someone noticed it. They were all so supportive and later threw me a surprise shower. I did console one woman who became emotional during the shower, telling me, ‘I want what you have.’ Of course, I wanted her to have her heart’s desire as well.” We want that, too—that’s why we wrote this book!
Often our girlfriends, who know us better than anyone, are the first to spot a likely match. Lisa met Anton at a January party she attended with several girlfriends. On Valentine’s Day her pals secretly wrote down their prediction that the two would wed. Nine months later, they read it at her wedding!
TELLING THE EX
Whether to tell the ex depends on your situation. If children are involved and in contact with the ex, clearly the ex will need to know. But before you do anything, and even if you get along with the ex, check with your attorney first to review your divorce and custody agreements. You want to make sure you fully understand and are following its terms and stipulations.
Even if children aren’t involved, there are times when notifying the ex is the respectful thing to do, particularly if the ex lives in your community or nearby and might learn of your nuptials via newspaper announcement, church bulletin or overlapping social circles, or if you might be seen with your fiancé at public functions. One woman simply contacted her ex-husband and said, “I didn’t want you to hear from someone else that I’m getting married in the next month or so.”
We’ve started planning our wedding and bringing our families into the loop. Most are 100 percent happy for us and eager to participate…a few not so much. Any advice?
Our brides shared lots of stories about this—many positive, some “not so much”! In grown-up life, not everyone’s immediately on board with big changes. You can sympathize with their feelings without agreeing with them: “We had friends who took the red-eye to attend our wedding, but Mack’s three grown daughters didn’t come, although they live in a city not that far away. Mack insisted they’d change their minds, but I knew better and kept trying to prepare him by saying, ‘Honey, don’t be disappointed, but they’re not coming.’ I don’t think my husband will ever get over the hurt and embarrassment in front of the rest of his family. I believe the reason the girls didn’t show up was from a sense of loyalty to their mother, but it was wrong of them to hurt their father as they did.”
It’s wise, as this bride noted, not to assume that somehow things will just work themselves out. From brides who faced family challenges realistically and resourcefully, we heard some remarkable turnaround stories.
“When Dennis and I took his parents to dinner and told them we were engaged, his mother literally turned to him and said, ‘How could you do this to me?’” Yasmin told us. “I was the ‘wrong’ background. For months she implored Dennis not to marry me. Finally he told her, ‘I’d really like you and Dad to come to our wedding, but if you can’t come and behave, then please don’t come.’ They came, but his mother started to make some comments to me. That’s when I said, ‘I think you and I need to start fresh, and I don’t think my wedding is the appropriate time or place for us to be talking about this. So if you’ll excuse me, I have to say good-night to a few of my guests.’ And I walked away.
“Afterward, I started over with her. I was unfailingly polite. I sent cards at appropriate times. I phoned. What happened was extraordinary. Nine months after we got married, she hosted a lovely catered brunch to introduce me to her friends. Before the guests arrived, Dennis was very nervous. Finally he said to his mother, ‘I don’t get it. Why are you doing this?’ She turned to him and said, ‘I was not very nice to you. So I wanted to do something nice now. I’ve never seen you so happy.’ She turned to me and said, ‘I’ve never heard anyone call him sweetheart. How could I not love you?’”
Brooke’s mother-in-law disapproved of her because of religious differences and because she was older than her husband. Brooke decided “not to draw a line in the sand. I concentrated on my husband and making his happiness my number one priority. I wanted his mother to see that I loved her only son and that nothing was more important to me. It was a lot for her to accept, but I just kept focusing on my husband and also on being good to her. I made sure she and my husband spent time alone together. I often suggest to him that he take her to lunch without me. We’ve been married for three years and she has come around. She sees how happy I’ve made her son.”
Tatiana told us, “My older sister and I are very close, and as my honor attendant she was supposed to help me out, but something always seemed to come up if I needed her assistance with reception planning or invitations, or just as a sounding board. It was as if my finally getting married meant she couldn’t be my big sister anymore. In a few months things were fine, and I was glad I hadn’t confronted her. If I’d been younger, I would have kept trying to draw her in. As an older bride, I was disappointed but more than capable of carrying on by myself with the help of my fabulous friends. Besides, I was so happy that nothing could dim the day. I was doing everything I wanted for me—that was the most important thing.”
These women handled family challenges without letting them dim their happiness, from their wedding day forward. As Yasmin said, “I felt so loved and surrounded by good feelings at my wedding that it didn’t touch me that day.” In the end, their positive approach benefited everyone. Never underestimate the power of happiness and love to transform relationships.
Many brides told us of poignant, memorable family celebrations. Ann recalls, “When Irv and I got engaged, he wanted to tell his grown son and daughter first, and in person. We took them out to dinner, and he said something adorably exaggerated like, ‘Well, kids, I want to tell you that after all this time, Ann has finally agreed to marry me.’ They were thrilled for us and bought us a drink to celebrate. It was intimate and sweet and fun.”
“My husband’s son wasn’t able to attend our wedding,” said one bride, a widow who remarried in her seventies, “so a month before we married, we flew to Chicago, where he and his wife held a party for us at his club. He wrote a poem about finding love later in life and had dozens of red roses delivered to the club. Every woman who came in that night received a rose and a copy of the poem. After dinner we went downstairs for a drink at the bar, and all the patrons congratulated us. It was a wonderful evening and we were both truly touched.”
You and your man have finally found each other. Let your joy shine through, and it will be contagious.
The Big Picture: You Paint It
We’re getting a lot of advice about what’s “appropriate” for our wedding. Is there a “right” way to do this?
What’s right for you is your call. Some brides have cherished wedding dreams for years. Others are nuptial novices: “I never doodled bridal outfits in my notebook. And my mother never mentioned the subject once!” (Not everyone we interviewed had moms who kept mum. One bride laughed: “My mother planned my first wedding—including picking the groom!”)
If you’re younger and your parents are paying for your wedding, you tend to go along with what they want and don’t give yourself a chance to think about doing something a little different. As a mature bride, chances are you and your honey are paying for the wedding (maybe with a bit of help), and you can make any wedding dream you have come true.
Tish says, “If I’d gotten married in my twenties, I’m sure my parents would have paid for the wedding, but we paid for this wedding ourselves. That made things simple: basically, there were only two people who needed to agree on the details, and we could invite our parents to enjoy the day as our guests.”
Whether it’s your first wedding or your third, and whether you’re thirty-five or sixty-five, being a grown-up means you get to make the decisions. Throw a bash if you want. Elope if you prefer! We know a bride who looked at twenty-two reception sites and one who got flowers from a vendor in the park en route to her ceremony. We know brides who wore white, wore green, wore purple, wore pants. Do anything you want!
THE ONLY RULE ABOUT WEDDINGS
The only “rule” is that your wedding reflect you and your man. As Ann says, “This is a celebration. Do what you’d do to celebrate in the way both of you want. I think a lot of people feel, ‘I’m too old for that.’ You’re not. You should feel terrific about it, and you should do whatever you want.”
One bride who married for the first time at fifty-five to a man nine years her senior told us, “I agonized for months before deciding that at our stage of life a wedding with no fuss, some close friends and sandwiches and punch in the back garden was about right. Either that or we should elope. Then Jeremy asked me why I wanted to be married. My answer—to make public our love and celebrate it in front of our friends and loved ones! So elopement didn’t really fit the bill. Jeremy was reminding me that I should do whatever I wanted, since it was my one and only wedding.” The Garter Brides agree!
Another bride refused to let her age—eighty!—rhyme with sedately. She and her husband held their wedding and celebratory dinner at a restaurant they loved…and just kept inviting people to join the fun: “When we got to the capacity of the restaurant,” she said, “we stopped!” This is one time when we don’t advise grown-up brides to act their age!
But you can apply your grown-up ingenuity to logistics and budgeting decisions: “I refused to buy into all the nonsense younger brides get sucked into,” Kate told us. “When I realized how much it was going to cost to have my wedding at a club, I decided my ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ weren’t worth it. My parents offered to host a small wedding at their apartment and gave us the money they would have spent on a bigger wedding. We used the money to do some renovations on our apartment.”
WORDS TO THE WISE ON WEDDINGS
“Don’t let anyone rain on your parade. If you want a big, flashy wedding—do it! If you want small and intimate—do it! You deserve whatever your heart has always desired. Don’t be too practical; be the bride you always dreamed of being, surrounded by the people you love and who love you—and enjoy yourself.”
“Make your wedding your dream come true. Don’t get caught up in what others have done. It’s your wedding, your dream. Just have fun!”
“One of my girlfriends told me, ‘No matter how carefully you plan a wedding, something will go wrong, but just laugh about it.’ I give this advice now to all my friends because it was true for me!”
“When we met with the rabbi before we married, he said, ‘This is a wonderful time, but also a stressful time. There’s so much to consider.’ He was so wise and comforting. He made us feel that it was OK to be nervous, even while feeling incredibly happy.”
A Cast of Thousands? Involving Friends and Family in Your Wedding
We’re touched and humbled by how many people have offered to help us. What can they do?
Lots! You and your fiancé have nurtured many relationships over the years, and now all of these talented folks can help make your wedding unforgettable, whether by their presence as guests or as members of the wedding party, with their participation in the preparations or by putting their abilities to work in ways you may never have anticipated!
Many brides shared funny, rapturous and touching stories of how friends and family pulled out the stops to be there for them. “The speeches our friends and family gave at our wedding were hysterical. My wildly successful brother flew in from Paris and brought the house down with childhood reminiscences about his older sister and how his lifelong inferiority complex was all my fault! I could do nothing but cry and laugh, since brides are not supposed to retaliate during their wedding! The best man arrived from Rome to say fascinating things about the groom, whom he has known since college, and one of my cousins showed up from South Carolina with an equally wicked speech recollecting my childhood.”
Friends, Indeed!
Your long, strong friendships offer great opportunities to give your girlfriends special roles. As bridesmaids and honor attendants, they can celebrate with you (in one case we know of, a friend officiated) and be your closest advisers—or, as one bride fondly called them, “my bridal cabinet.”
Another bride, planning bicoastal receptions, built a team from her far-flung friends: “My East Coast friends visited sites and tested the food; a West Coast friend looked at sites she could get to more easily than I.”
Pat, who loves to cook for and with her friends (she baked wedding cakes for several Garter Brides, including Ann), said, “I’d been in fourteen weddings and didn’t want anyone to have to buy a dress for mine, so other than my mother as my honor attendant, I didn’t have a wedding party. Instead, some of my closest local girlfriends and I made special cookies to pass around at the reception.”
There’s nothing like a girlfriend to settle bridal nerves. “On the day of the wedding, I felt like a teenager. I was nervous, silly, running late, under-organized and not at all in control!” Ann describes one friend’s wise remedy for bridal jitters: “A dear friend called and said, ‘Ann, the week before the wedding, I will be absolutely available to you. Say the word and I’ll be there’”—and she lived in Washington, D.C.! She even offered to come over the day of the wedding to help me get dressed. Even though I wasn’t nervous, I don’t know what I’d have done without her. When Pat got married, I did the same for her, including coming early on her wedding day to help her get ready, bringing extra pantyhose, needle and thread, safety pins and other emergency supplies—including a new lipstick and Tampax!”
Another bride’s best friend spontaneously greeted her at the reception with a refreshing drink and then whisked her off to the ladies’ room, where she got a few precious minutes to sit and relax while her friend produced a comb and hairpins from her purse and fixed the bride’s hair, which had become mussed from receiving line hugs. “How did you know I needed this?” the bride marveled. “I’m married!” her friend reminded her.
“When Irv and I set our wedding date, I was very disappointed that two of my oldest friends couldn’t attend due to important family obligations,” Ann recalls. “My dear friend Jackie (from seventh grade) sent me her beautiful white beaded evening bag to carry, and Barbara loaned me her pearl earrings. Even though I couldn’t have them with me, they could still be part of that special day by providing two wonderful items for ‘something borrowed’!”
Meaningful Roles for Family
The diversity of grown-up families allows multiple generations to participate in your nuptials. Adult children can offer tender, insightful reminiscences. One bride told us, “My husband’s younger son, who had aided and abetted our blossoming romance, made a speech full of the kind of sweet, intimate details only a family member would know about.” Ann recalls, “Irv’s son was his best man and gave us a wonderful toast. Irv had his own and Tony’s names engraved on his father’s pocketwatch (which had his father’s name already engraved on it) and gave it to Tony as a groom’s gift.”
Tish’s wedding party was tiny—in both size and stature: “John’s daughter and son, ages seven and five, stood up with us. His daughter was beautiful in a flowing pink dress and his son was adorable in a little white tux. When I was planning our wedding, knowing that I would soon become a stepmom, it was very important to me to include John’s children in the wedding party. I honestly couldn’t decide which of my girlfriends to ask to be bridesmaids, so we decided to have John’s two kids be our entire wedding party.
“Of course, I had to have my hair and my stepdaughter’s hair done on the big day…and it took forever! John got to the church with my brothers with the idea of meeting us early to make sure the kids were set for the ceremony. As the minutes dragged by, he became convinced I wasn’t going to show up. When we finally walked in, I don’t think he’d ever been so glad to see anyone in his life!
“Having kids in our wedding was fun because we could make plans with them and choose their outfits together, and it gave us all a focus for the weeks before the event. We let them invite a few friends so they weren’t the only kids at the reception. Having them standing up there with us showed all our guests that we were now a new family—the four of us—moving forward.”
Young girls will cherish the chance to dress up and participate, so don’t stop at one flower girl if you don’t want to. “We had four flower girls, all nine years old: his two nieces, my niece and a close friend’s daughter.”
One bride enriched her garden wedding with a variant on the flower girl theme: “Our five-year-old ‘butterfly maiden’ managed to read the Native American butterfly legend—that butterflies carry wishes and dreams into the universe—all by herself with some help from my brother. Then we released monarch butterflies into the garden, which was designed for butterflies to enjoy, to a chorus of oohs and ahhs and applause.”
WHY THEY WED
“I had found my true love at last.”
“I married to preserve and cherish what we already had together. So when people ask, ‘How’s married life?’ I say, ‘Just as wonderful as it was before.’”
“My father used to ask, ‘So, when are you going to find somebody?’ I was never in a rush and would shrug him off. When he met Arturo for the first time, I looked at my dad and said, ‘This was worth waiting for, Dad.’”
“When I was married the first time, I was a kid. The second time I had a much different personality and I was ready for a partnership. This time there’s no pressure to have children or find a career; you do it just because you want to be with him.”
Children can be included in vows. “I took vows to Ken’s son, Evan, after we said our own vows. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house!” one bride told us.
Even departed loved ones or those who can’t attend can be honored and included: “Neither my husband nor I have living parents, so we set up a table in the ceremony area to hold their photographs and have them present in this evocative sense.” One bride added a twentyfirst-century twist: her parents, who lived in another city, were too elderly to attend, but she called them on her cell phone so they could hear the small, private ceremony!
Some people are asking “which marriage” this is for my fiancé and me…why I’m wearing white “at my age”…and even about our financial arrangements. What should I say?
Weddings are exciting! Everyone wants to get in on the act. Although their inquiries are mostly well-meant, the spectrum of inappropriateness can range from the moderately annoying to the “What?”
For questions about finances, try a confident “We’ve got everything worked out” with no details offered. If someone asks why you’re wearing white, counter with, “Why not?” For questions about remarriage, we think Pat’s husband got it right: “When someone asked Mark which marriage this was for him, he said, ‘My last.’”
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED…
“This ‘mature bride’ at a youthful fifty-one was somehow presumed to be the mother of the bride while dress hunting, registering and selecting wedding items: ‘What kind of kitchenware has the bride chosen?’ ‘The bride is choosing the kitchenware as we speak. Hmph.’ The upside of my (alleged) maturity, however, was in being able to keep in perspective the pressure and the number of decisions to be made. None of that was as important as having found exactly the right partner at last. The rest would work itself out, and it did.”
Let’s Party!
My friends want to give me a bridal shower, and some people have asked if we’re registered. Is it OK to do both? What about other kinds of parties?
“If anyone offers to throw you a shower,” one bride advised, “say yes.”
It’s OK to have a bridal shower if you’ve been married before, and certainly if you’ve never been. These days, the number and nature of parties before (and after) the big day need only be limited by your imagination. From traditional kitchen and lingerie showers with hors d’oeuvres, coffee, wine and games to restaurant dinners with friends to coed showers that include your fiancé, the brides we interviewed described myriad celebrations that added to the fun of their nuptials:
“My future sisters-in-law threw a shower for about ten of my close friends. I still have the baseball cap with a white veil that says ‘bride,’ and my husband still has his ‘groom’ baseball cap—not to mention the lingerie!”
“We had a party with a belly dancer.”
“A group of friends took me out to dinner—sans sexy underwear and naked men clambering out of cakes. I loved it.”
“The night before our wedding, we had a pool party and barbecue at our house.”
“My women friends gave me a shower where I requested ‘words of wisdom’ as a gift.”
“I had an engagement party and five showers, given by joyous friends and my sister, a rehearsal dinner and an impromptu postwedding gathering for wedding left overs in our hotel room with about ten friends who were staying in the hotel overnight.”
“We had a prewedding dinner the night before for the huge number of out-of-town guests. It wasn’t so good for my middle-age wrinkles, but they had come a long way and needed to be welcomed.”
As for gift s and registering, Ann says, “It was my third marriage and Irv’s second, and I considered not having gift s. But a friend who’d gotten married for the second time at around fifty said, ‘Ann, let people give you wedding presents. You’re starting a life together, and you should treat it that way. That’s why you register.’”
HOW THEY WED
“We were married in a church in a little seaside town, followed by a reception in a Federalist-style brick building, with tall windows, a gold chandelier and hardwood floors. Very New England.”
“Our wedding included Chinese traditions—my daughter is Chinese and we felt that would be a way to honor and include her—and my daughter and my husband’s son were our only witnesses.”
“One of my favorite things was our decision to include everyone in the wedding readings. The audience was asked to acknowledge that they had a responsibility to us as our ‘community’—that it takes a village to make a marriage work.”
“Our friends decorated a 1963 Edsel pickup truck (we called it the ‘mitzvah/chuppah-mobile’) and they led us in a procession, playing the bagpipes in Scottish kilts and tartan yarmulkes, down a country road to the courtyard of the inn where we married.”
“We were married outdoors at a nature preserve.”
“We were married in the main sanctuary of my temple with only the immediate family (about eighteen people) present. Afterward we went to a nearby club for drinks and were serenaded by the rabbi, who is a classical pianist. Then we went to a quiet, romantic restaurant for dinner à deux. A month later we held a dinner for a hundred friends at a club.”
“I created a very intimate wedding in my sister’s backyard. There were twelve of us plus the rabbi.”
“We married in the garden of a Greek restaurant, with a Latin jazz group playing our music, and all our friends pronounced us husband and wife.”
“My second wedding was a traditional Catholic mass.”
“I was married in a small Greek Orthodox church. We were supposed to have about 125 guests, but honestly I’m not sure how many were there, since it was a buffet brunch with open seating and my mother kept inviting people!”
“We had two weddings: one in a Catholic church, followed by a Jewish service at a lovely hotel. We wanted to respect each of our religious backgrounds without making our wedding a hybrid that didn’t reflect our religious practices.”
“We had a priest and a rabbi jointly bless us in Hebrew and English.”
Vows That Wow
Every moment of your wedding ceremony—the words, the music and the mystical magic—can and should reflect the essence of you and your mate.
Tish and John made beautiful music together at their wedding, just as they had in high school: “We got married in New York City in a church on Madison Avenue before taking a horse-drawn carriage to our reception at the Boathouse in Central Park. During the ceremony, we sang ‘Let It Be Me’ to each other, singing the third verse in harmony. We wanted to hold hands, but in rehearsal, we both got so emotional we knew we’d never get through it, so we didn’t touch each other.” (P.S.: when they renewed their vows for their fifteenth anniversary, they sang it again.)
“We mingled faiths and friends at our wedding,” Pat recalls. “The chuppah was held by two other interfaith couples who were close friends and was embroidered with the names of all the couples married under it. The priest who blessed our rings was a dear friend who often dropped by my apartment to talk after his power walks around the neighborhood. At our ceremony he told how when he’d leave, I’d say, ‘Father, say a prayer that I’ll meet someone special.’ ‘One day,’ he said, ‘I went to Pat’s apartment and when she opened the door she said, “So you’ve been praying.”’”
Ann went traditional for nuptials number three: “A lot of women I know who’ve gotten married later in life said they felt self-conscious about having a traditional wedding. We decided we weren’t going to. We had a very conventional ceremony in an upstairs room at a club, attended by just the immediate family. One of the most beautiful moments was when the rabbi wrapped us in the prayer shawl. Afterward, there was dinner and dancing for about ninety-five guests in the ballroom with an excellent three-piece band.”
Another couple tipped the opposite end of the formality scale: “We left our apartment, got flowers and walked to Central Park, where we got married in a gazebo on the lake. Aside from our two witnesses and the minister, we had just two guests: one who took pictures and one who was only two years old! We also had two surprise guests: it was raining lightly and two teenagers taking refuge in the gazebo became our ‘extra witnesses.’ It was spontaneous, simple and perfect.”
SOME FUNNY THINGS HAPPENED…
“When Irv’s elderly uncle left our wedding, I said, ‘Thank you so much for coming.’ Everyone laughed when he replied, ‘Thank you for taking him off our hands!’”
“We were married in my in-laws’ living room. They had two miniature schnauzers who somehow sensed the importance of the day: when we entered the living room where the guests were assembled, the dogs followed in formation behind us! Everyone broke out in laughter.”
“I tracked the weather for weeks before our outdoor wedding. All looked good until a hurricane started creating havoc out at sea. It poured during the ceremony, and although we were under a tent, so much rain had gathered on the tent roof that at a very tender moment in the ceremony, the minister, who was standing at the edge of the tent, had a bucketful of water fall on his head! He made the best of it and we carried on.”
“My seven-year-old son asked his father (my ex) during the ceremony to give me a kiss because I was crying!”
Many of the brides imbued their ceremonies with creative touches reflecting a lifetime of experiences, talents and interests: “We were married under an azure sky in a friend’s garden that my husband had designed and landscaped. A Buddhist priest officiated in a ceremony of our own devising in which we told each other why we had selected each other as life partners. The priest cleansed our rings in a purification ritual. At the end, the strains of ‘Scotland the Brave’ wafted from the back of the property. A lone bagpiper emerged through the trees and played until lunch was served. My husband was astonished— I had surprised him with the music of his ancestors.”
MORE WORDS TO THE WISE ON WEDDINGS
“Other brides assured me something would go wrong right before the wedding. Sure enough, the caterer called to ask if I was aware that the beautiful mansion where we were to wed was encased in scaffolding, with Dumpsters and sand piles out front. Why no, I wasn’t! We worked it out: sand and Dumpsters were removed, the scaffolding stayed but was removed from the door and the price was reduced accordingly. The trick was in appearing to be horrified and overwhelmed to get the immediate cooperation I needed, while staying calm internally. Advice to brides: stay cool in the face of apparent disaster. It will all work out. After thirty years of being single, nothing could ruin my having found my soul mate!”
“I wish I’d had my hair done professionally—I didn’t calculate on breezes and open air. But my toenails and fingernails looked fine!”
“I was so overwhelmed by all the funny and touching speeches that I forgot my thank-you list and regret that I hadn’t prepared better. I forgot to acknowledge my husband’s children—something I’ll always regret.”
“During the ceremony, look around at your guests and really try to take everything in.”
“At the eleventh hour I decided to have the event videotaped—solely because my favorite elderly aunt, who couldn’t attend, said, ‘You can always send me a videotape, dear!’ Now I’m so grateful I did, as everything went by in a misty blur. We both wept when we watched the tape later; it was so moving. Whether you hire someone or have friends take photos and videos, make sure you have a record of the day.”
Destination weddings let you take your big day anywhere in the world that inspires you: “We had a small ceremony on an island in Alaska called Halibut Cove, with twenty-four guests, mainly family and close friends. We all took a little fishing boat to the island and I was married on a wooden dock overlooking the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen. After a dinner of clams and mussels at the only restaurant in the cove, we took the boat home at midnight, with the sun just setting on an Alaskan summer night. Perfection!”
Perfect Reception
Our heads are spinning with ideas for the reception! Any advice?
Hitch up your skirts, cuff s, kilts or what-have-you and kick up your heels! Just listening to our brides talk about their receptions made us want to shimmy! Whether they feasted on filet mignon and smoked salmon (that was Pat’s) or filched candy from fishbowls set out for the twenty-plus kids in attendance, sipped Bellinis or swigged beer, fox-trotted or square-danced, their parties were delicious, fun, fanciful, sophisticated, sassy and even endearingly silly—in short, as varied as the couples themselves—and that’s our advice to you as you plan your festivities! We want you to be able to say, as one bride did: “I must have been glowing—never have pictures of me looked so good.” Read on for highlights of the fêtes, the food, the cake, the clothes and, at the center of each, a beautiful bride with the man of her dreams.
How They Celebrated
“We had champagne, caviar, dinner and cake. It was lovely.”
“We had a blowout party in a cathedral that we turned into a nightclub.”
“During dinner, my husband’s best friend (and master of ceremonies) got up and said, ‘There are some people outside who you didn’t invite, but they decided to come anyway.’ In marched a fifteen-piece bagpipe band in full regalia playing ‘Hava Nagila’ and a group of guys lifted our chairs and danced us around the room. The band then presented him with a token of their affection—a tartan yarmulke!”
“We had a sit-down lunch for fifty, a lousy photographer, a great wedding cake, fabulous food and a crazy karaoke guy. Cake and coffee were served in the billiards room, where you could shoot pool or sing with the karaoke guy, who made people wear costumes. The best was the group of guys, including my husband, who dressed as Village People and sang ‘YMCA.’ It was such a hit my husband’s dad joined in and danced around with an inflatable cake hat on his head!”
“We had yummy passed hors d’oeuvres, followed by a buffet with informal café seating. Not only was it less expensive than a sit-down dinner, but I didn’t have to do a seating plan, worrying where to seat people who didn’t get along or might not have much in common. We just mingled and had fun—me included!”
“We wanted something low-key and booked a restaurant we liked, which closed for us and our sixty guests. We were married there by an interfaith rabbi, and we had a string and flute trio and a sit-down lunch. My husband’s parents couldn’t understand how we could consider it a wedding without a band and dancing. Shortly after the wedding his mother invited us to their home to meet some of their friends. We were surprised to arrive and find over two hundred guests! All I did was stand on a receiving line shaking hands with people, 90 percent of whom I never saw again. My in-laws refer to it as our ‘wedding reception,’ but we had the wedding and party we wanted. Had I been in my twenties, I probably would have agreed to the big blowout they wanted.”
“We’ve been married fifteen years, but to this day people tell me how much fun they had at our wedding. The morning service was followed by a full brunch with open bar at a wonderful Italian restaurant owned by a friend, with a terrific Greek American band. The Old World ambiance and merriment were just what I wanted.”
LET THEM EAT CAKE
Pat remembers, “I bake wedding cakes as a hobby, so I baked my own: chocolate with raspberry filling—a recipe from a cookbook Mark and I bought in London.”
Jenn says, “My wedding cake was the most beautiful I’d ever seen: a lemon cake with pale yellow butter cream icing, decorated with flowers matching my bouquet. The fact that my good friend Patricia Mary Agnes Ryan Lampl baked it made it incredibly special.”
“We had two wonderful black-and-white wedding cakes, in tilted, patterned triple tiers—one for our West Coast ceremony and one for our East Coast ceremony.”
“Ours was a fruit-tart-like Venetian wedding cake.”
“Instead of a traditional wedding cake, my fiancé, his sons and I went to a favorite restaurant and picked four cakes to serve.”
Tish laughs. “I told the caterer I wanted a chocolate wedding cake, but to make sure no one put rum in it because we had a lot of little kids at our wedding. Of course, John and I cut into the cake, took a bite and found it soaked in rum—but by then it was too late: the pieces were cut and the kids were eating them before we even turned around! They all survived and had a really good time, and we still laugh about it!”
What They Wore
Remember Ann wore white? “I didn’t know what to wear, so I called a costume designer and said, ‘I don’t want to look like another guest at the party, but I’m no ingénue.’ She suggested a store that sells antique wedding dresses. I fell in love with a delicate, long, cream-colored 1906 Edwardian cotton dress. I felt fantastic in it.”
Pat, who claims all her childhood fantasies were “connected with food, Hollywood or both,” said, “My fantasy from age fifteen was to wear the dress Grace Kelly wore in Rear Window to bring James Stewart the lobster dinner. I didn’t have much money to spend. I went to a bridesmaid dress store that sold cocktail dresses and ordered it in ivory: very 1950s with a sweetheart neckline, nipped-in waist and calf-length pouf skirt. And great Peter Fox shoes—on sale—that I still wear.”
Tish, bless her performer’s heart, went backless! “My brother came over to say hi—and when I turned around, he gasped.”
Said another gutsy bride: “It was a very New York wedding: we both wore black. So did our minister—black leather!”
Nita and her groom both wore pants: “We both wore suits, he with a traditional shirt and tie, me with a camisole. For the reception, I wore a long claret spaghetti-strap dress with a shimmery shawl.”
Daphne went yesteryear in a Victorian-style long gown. “I designed and made a large lace and ostrich feather hat, with a removable back veil. Without the veil, the hat reversed to show the large flower in front. For something old and something blue, I incorporated a piece of the blue veil from my mother’s wedding hat of fifty-nine years before.”
Here are a few more highlights:
“For my second wedding I squeezed into my mother’s restored wedding dress that ripped every time I moved!”
I wore a mermaid gown decorated with lace and crystals. He wore a tux with a periwinkle blue cummerbund, and my five bridesmaids wore periwinkle blue dresses.”
“I’m short, so I didn’t want anything overwhelming. I wore a white gown with hand-beaded white Belgian lace on the bodice and arms, and the skirt was pure white satin silk. For something old I wore a ring and a bracelet; for something new I wore a garter (also my something blue), a pair of silver and diamond earrings from my sister, lacy undergarments and beaded silver heels. Vince looked so handsome in his black tuxedo—his mother kept telling him to take off his glasses (though he’s as blind as a bat without them) whenever we needed to take a picture.”
“My husband said he loved me in yellow, so I wore a yellow suit. The flowers were all yellow and blue.”
“I wore an ivory strapless gown with a champagne lace overlay with long sleeves. I loved it.”
We’ll leave the final word on this to Pat, who said to Mark about her walk down the aisle: “Remember that when you see me, I’ll remember for the rest of my life what you say.” You’ll also remember for the rest of your life how you feel in the outfit of your dreams—which, like your man, should be exactly right for you.
Over the (Honey)moon
After all the festivities, it’s time to escape with your man for some one-on-one R&R! Some of our brides went to exotic isles. Tish and John escaped to the Bahamas before returning to plunge into life as a new family with two little ones (and, as we know, two soon to be on the way). Another couple explored Bora Bora and Tahiti. Ann and Irv went to Club Med. Pat and Mark took a cruise. Others sought bright lights and big cities, striking desert landscapes or both: “We were whisked away in a limo for a night in New York before flying to Santa Fe for a glorious and romantic week. And now we are living happily ever after.” Ahhhh.
So decide what defines “play” for the two of you…and make sure you do it. Don’t just go back to work! As Ann says, “I know a lot of people say, ‘We don’t really need a honeymoon.’ You do. You need a few days to yourselves, away from all the activity. It’s important to mark the new beginning of your life as a married couple.” If money’s tight, see if you can use some frequent-traveler miles, or if a friend who lives in a cool place is away on business or vacation, see if you can borrow her home for a few days (and water her plants while you’re at it). You can always plan and save for a bigger getaway later, but you only get one honeymoon with your honey, so make sure you take it, and revel in the special afterglow of your wedding.
And Now… Wedded Bliss
We hope reading about the many ways our brides got married has inspired you to pursue your own dreams of wedded bliss. As we listened to their stories, we were once again struck by the optimism and dedication with which these couples sought each other out, nurtured their love and sometimes overcame challenges in order to stand together before the world and say, “We do.” One woman who’d raised two small children on her own after being widowed finally remarried twenty-three years later to a father of three whose divorce had taken four years. When we asked why she had married again, she said, “We’ve been through so much together and he is so accepting of my family and considers my children his children. He told me he wanted me to be a part of his life for the rest of his life. Marrying was a testament to our relationship and our love for each other. I’ve spent much of my life caring for other people. Now I’m learning to let someone take care of me. I don’t think marriage is about finding your soul mate; it’s about being willing to go on a journey together. My life is so much richer, and my feelings for my husband constantly deepen. I love him more and more each day.”
Their weddings were the culmination of a dream. “It was remarkable to see our closest friends and relatives from around the country, all in one room, and beaming. There was such joy throughout the day, coming from my side of the family and from his. The joy spilled over to each of us from the other’s side, for being the source of each other’s happiness!”
The joy of your wedding day will be with you always. We know that’s true for us. One bride said it well: “Recently my husband left me a phone message to cheer me up during a particularly evil day at work: ‘I shall never forget the sight of you in your wedding outfit coming toward me for the ceremony.’ Reason enough for a fifty-five-year-old to marry the man she loves!”
That joy, of course, is just the beginning of the sustained happiness you’ll build together. “The best thing about being married is illustrated in this story: I came home from a day in which several personal and professional projects I’d been developing had come together all at the same time. I was excited about them all, but I knew they’d be a lot of work and I didn’t want them to interfere with my new marriage. My husband listened to all my news and my feelings of being overwhelmed, and said, ‘Honey, I’m not going anywhere.’ That’s the best thing about being married—knowing my husband loves me, wants me to be happy and is not going anywhere.”
We love that feeling, too. It’s one that grown-ups especially know how to treasure: “To share your life with someone you love is a privilege not to be taken for granted. The sorrows are halved, the joys doubled.”
WHAT THEY LOVE MOST ABOUT BEING MARRIED
“I can kiss him anytime I want to!”
“I’m with my true love.”
“Being introduced as ‘his wife.’”
“It still makes me smile to say the words ‘my husband.’”
“I’m not in it by myself anymore.”
“Falling asleep in his arms.”
“Never feeling lonely because we have each other.”
“Building a life with someone I love.”
“Being with someone who has my best interests at heart.”
“Knowing that I’m going to laugh every day.”
“All of the above!”