dirty wedding dress
Two weeks before I got married I found myself sitting at the kitchen table googling “How to cancel a wedding after the invitations have gone out?”
It’s not that I didn’t love him, I did, I do. But getting married? What was I thinking. I can’t commit to a coffee order, let alone a man. How do I explain this in a way that makes me come off as likable? I hate weddings and I have no interest in being off the market, locked down, trapped, suffocated, or committed.
Saying I will be your “girlfriend” gives me the same feeling as when an elevator hitches and you’re not sure if you’re about to be stuck in there for hours or plummet straight to your death. Saying I’ll be your “wife.” Well shit. The engines are failing. The oxygen masks are down. Why oh why would I agree to marry anyone?
Because I LOVED him.
We’re supposed to fall in love and get married, the bible (romantic comedies) told me so.
My dream wedding would be midnight on NYE in some fancy lounge where everyone wore floor length fur coats over their gowns and stood around tall bar top tables drinking ice cold martinis. The guests barely look up from their drinks to watch Kirk and I have our first dance. It’s dark and hazy, maybe even a little smokey in there. Jeff Goldblum’s jazz band is playing a version of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon softly on a small dimly lit stage. Jazz bands don’t typically play covers or actual songs, but Jeff’s a close friend and he was happy to oblige. I kick off my heels. My black sequined wedding dress drags on the floor. Kirk quickly wraps his arms around my waist, lifts me up, and says “You’re the woman of my dreams.” He’s six foot seven, so it’s easy for him to hold me like that for the entirety of the song. Kirk makes me feel like I’m the only girl in the world. Probably because he was a virgin when we met and he’s never even looked at another woman in his entire life. I love that about him. He’s also rich, did I mention that?
JC and I got married in August, in a field of dry grass.
“I need more invites.” he said. “JC, no. Why? Who are you inviting now?” I had hoped for a small intimate ceremony, JC had other plans. “Barb, from the bank. She’s my favorite banker!” I let him take one more invite and that was it.
I felt embarrassed at the idea of reciting vows in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know. Not embarrassed enough to actually write vows though. JC wrote his on the back of a fake hundred dollar bill and pulled it crumpled out of his pocket to read to me. When it was my turn, I just winged it. Something about crying babies and life being unpredictable. My three year old son had lost our wedding rings in the dry grass minutes before the ceremony and was having a meltdown in my mother’s arms, not about the rings, I don’t think that fazed him.
I stood there with a long row of my best friends behind me; initially I’d planned on no bridesmaids but one of my friends texted me when I got engaged and said “Let us know where to buy our dresses.”
I ordered six mustard yellow dresses and one white gown off Zappos and called it good. The groomsmen walked down the aisle with a marigold bridesmaid on each arm. JC asked one of my ex-boyfriends to be in his wedding party. As I recited my vows, I thought he must be imagining I am saying them to him, I wasn’t. Had I been it would have been something more like “Fuck right off you fucking fuck.”
The evening before our ceremony we all behaved ourselves and went to bed early to feel fresh the next morning. Wait no, we didn’t do that. I got in a fight with my ex-boyfriend and we all got super drunk.
The next morning the girls got ready at our house while the boys went … golfing? Curling irons blazing, champagne flowing. We laughed while we did each other’s hair and make-up and took shots of Fireball. Listen we were in our twenties. If you don’t forget to eat and drink too much is it even a real wedding anyways? We all piled in my friend’s suburban to make our way down to the bible camp. The flower girl had a melt down and refused to get in the car. “Pick her up and throw her in!” a bridesmaid suggested as we were already late.
The bible camp is where people hosted religious retreats, also where my mother hosted one of her many weddings.
One big, log lodge surrounded by little cabins nestled away in the forest. None of which had been updated since the 1970’s. They smelled of damp carpet and wood panelling.
We set chairs out in the field for our ninety-guests, eighty-five of which JC had invited. These poor people sweating in the sun, waiting for us, as I have sweated in the sun waiting for many brides before me.
Why must people insist on Summer weddings?
When it was time to walk down the aisle, my step-dad on one arm, my son on the other, I thought …
“Holy fuck am I just drunk or do I actually want to marry this man.”
I managed to make it through the ceremony and to the reception. Luckily most everyone was on their way to catching up to my drunkenness. My sweet little sister, who wasn’t drunk, gave a speech that offended JC’s entire family. She winged it as well. Something to the effect of “When I first met JC … I thought he was a little slow.” I found it funny to be fair.
We ate, we drank, we were married.
After the reception we decide to walk down to the local dive bar. I kick off my heels. My white polyester wedding dress drags on the gravel road. Someone, not my husband, picked me up and gave me a piggy-back ride to the pub. The party trickled from the bar back to our house. The DJ ended up naked in our hot tub with a handful of people that weren’t even at the wedding. One of my bridesmaids took a running jump into the Jacuzzi, caught her pinky toe on the edge, and nearly ripped it clean off. At that point there was more naked people than water in it anyways. It took a lot of draining and bleaching to convince me to get back in there after that.
Around four in the morning my maid of honor, Mandie, and I climbed into bed together. I have no idea where my husband slept on our wedding night.
Mandie sat up in bed the next morning looking beautiful as ever, still in her bridesmaid’s dress, jewelry, and shoes. She could have walked right back down the aisle if she wanted to. Instead we decided to go back to the dive bar for mimosas. I left JC at home.
My brother-in-law, who officiated the ceremony, called me to say
“You guys forgot to sign the marriage certificate.”
I went home, crawled on top of JC and said “Wake up honey, I need you to marry me now.”
Also some of my loveliest memories from your wedding: standing up there during the ceremony not knowing if I was wiping away tears or sweat.
And then stumbling through the grass in my red-wine-stained bridesmaid dress a couple hours later, thinking “I’m definitely the drunkest person here”… only to turn the corner and find another bridesmaid sitting cross-legged on the ground casually puking into her lap. “Don’t judge me.” I think she said to me. I felt much better.
I also need to correct the record on one detail here historical accuracy:
I absolutely did not make it back to the bar for mimosas the next morning. I was so hideously hungover I spent the entire next day in your and JC’s bed. Had to call in sick to work. I think you guys came back at some point and jumped on me and tried to feed me fireball and cold chicken strips, then eventually kicked me out to consummate your marriage finally 🤣
All right you forgot, when you tried to sneak off to the moldy smelling cabin (this was a Baptist Bible camp only used summers for kids.) to pass out and one of your bridesmaids chased you down and physically dragged you back to the reception, forcing you to drink water and dance like she had a six shooter aimed at your feet.
My bestie Waneta did what she always does at any of our weddings, pulls the booze at 11pm and puts it in her trunk. That always makes a hasty end to the party and thus the escape down the street to the still open bar. You had no trouble getting down the street because you rode bareback on the bartender for the wedding?
Then you didn't speak to me for three days after I looked at the wedding pictures because I said that I looked like a drag queen and your mother-in-law looked like a high school hygiene teacher. Hey, I thought that was funny! You looked at me with the venom of a 15-year-old in your eyes and hissed " You picked out that dress." As if I didn't want to look like a drag queen. I should be so lucky!
The part I will never forget and will cherish in my heart forever is when your beautiful son, the absolute love of my life, 3 years old, collapsed into tears during the ceremony. I swooped in and grabbed him up and carried him away and he wept in despair, so ashamed, saying "I tried and I couldn't do it" I assured him that he was just fine and did exactly the right thing. I told him, 'You were just hot in your suit and need a Sprite. Let's go to the kitchen and get a Sprite." He wrapped his tiny arms tighter around my neck as I carried him and whispered in my ear "Yaya, you are my best friend.."