“A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life.
You have been dead until now.
Were you aware of that? You’re dead…right now.”
– wedding planner Marion, Bride Wars
To continue my musings on love and marriage in the wake of attending the "All the Single Ladies" panel discussion with Kate Bolick, I wanted to write about a topic briefly touched upon by the panel - the fantasy of the wedding day vis-à-vis the reality of marriage.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I love perusing wedding photography blogs – the amount of time and thought that goes into pulling off such an elaborate event blows my detail-oriented, DIY-loving mind. The floral arrangements! The cutesy seating chart! The wedding favors that symbolize the newlyweds’ love and are conveniently sized for easy packing! So many elements in a wedding are meant to serve as representations of the couple – who they are and what their story is. It is meant to be the perfect “first day of the rest of [their] lives.”
Beginning at a young age, women are repeatedly told through various channels that their wedding day is supposed to be the best day of their lives. Not only will you be marrying your Prince Charming, but you get to be a princess for the day. This is the day to be pampered like a princess and look like a princess – it’s your time to wear a gorgeous, expensive dress that you’ll never wear again (even if you get married again – that’s bad juju). A few brides will take it upon themselves to even act like a royal pain in the ass to have the wedding they’ve always dreamed of.
Don’t get me wrong – I think weddings are a beautiful opportunity to witness and celebrate a couple’s promise of love and commitment to each other. All the weddings I’ve attended have been wonderfully joyous events and the couples, the brides in particular, were nothing short of glowing. But the fairy tales, the movies, the magazines, the websites, they all build up the event to be the festive gateway to your “happily ever after.” They detract from the reality that remaining happily coupled is usually the result of hard work and making sacrifices.
In actuality, this fact is alluded to during many wedding ceremonies and some officiators even call on attendees to vow to support the flourishing of the couple's marriage. But circumstances change. People change. You can count on that on your wedding day, but you can't count on how they'll change.
If anyone would know, it’d be these couples captured by photographer Laura Fleishman (her photo, above). All have been married for over 50 years and share words of wisdom about what comes after the wedding day.
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