FIT TO BE TIED

By Melissa Coleman

I’m not the kind of girl who’s planned the color of her bridesmaid dresses since age five. Nor have I ever shopped for a wedding dress just for fun. I haven’t been handed down something old, something new or something blue from my grandmother.

Weddings, for me, have always fallen into the categories of my mother’s second or father’s third.

But I still wept onto the white linen table clothes at a friend’s perfect wedding because I never thought I would have such an event of my own. Seated around the table, my high school friends (who all had perfect weddings themselves) tried to console me:

“Just because your parents haven’t spoken since they divorced 24 years ago, shouldn’t mean you can’t have a very nice wedding,” they said.

“Even though you’ve never had a relationship that’s lasted more than a year, doesn’t mean you won’t meet someone,” they added.

“Thanks,” I sobbed.

But I knew something wouldn’t be the same.

The thing that makes a wedding so magical, the innocence, had long ago been lost in my parent’s messy divorces. For me, the concept of marriage would always be tarnished.

However, a few years later, hope prevailed and I finally met the man.

“You two are perfect for each other!” my most cynical friend proclaimed. And she wasn’t saying I had found another freak like myself. (Well, sort of.)

Eric is a kind and mature person who shares similar goals and values, likes the same sports and foods, and most importantly my dog loves him.

I knew that together we were better people, but out of habit I held no expectations.

Marriage, my friends asked? No, I’d say, life is complicated enough. Then he told me he had a big surprise. I was supposed to meet him in Colorado, where we had first met. Maybe this is it, I thought, and was surprised to find that I was excited. I told my friends, I think he’s going to propose. I did my nails. I practiced my coy acceptance. But I still wasn’t so sure about the whole marriage thing.

However, no proposal came. Turned out he bought a ring but decided it wasn’t the right style and returned it and bought a truck instead. "Surprise," he grinned, opening the king cab passenger door for me.

Can you say, fear of commitment?

Getting engaged became a carrot on a string, just out of my grasp. Of course I began to want it. When it finally happened a year later, this time I was ready. YES! I said.

Then the pressure started. Have you set a date? location? dress? caterer? ring? bridesmaids? honeymoon? gift registry? weddingchannel.com? cake? band?

And as if those things weren’t enough to make us crazy, I had another problem, the one I’d feared, oh so long ago, crying on the white tablecloths of my friend’s perfect wedding:

My mother said she wouldn’t go to the wedding IF it was held at my father’s place, and my father said he wouldn’t pay for it UNLESS it was held at his place.

Maybe I’d found the right guy, but the wedding still wasn’t looking so hot.

Why am I doing this? I asked myself. Is there still any magic left in this strange tradition or has it been diluted down to emptiness? This is what I’d dreaded, the unfinished business of my parent’s marriage had been resurrected by the event of my own marriage. Would their strife follow me down the aisle and over the threshold of my own life?

However, three months before the wedding, I honestly feel that hard as it is, planning to get married is the best thing I've ever done.

Believe me, up until now, there were a hundred times when Eric and I threw up our hands over family issues and said, “Okay, now we’re really going to elope to Hawaii.”

“This is about US,” we said to my mom, “not about YOU.”

Miraculously, though, everything fell into place, piece by piece, like a strange puzzle.

My mom agreed to come if it was at a location near, but not at, my father’s place. My father agreed to host it a nearby yacht club. (Actually he and Eric still wish we could just have a BBQ in the backyard.)

My mom designed my dress. The invitations were printed by a local artist. We found an organic caterer, a great band, a friend who is a professional wedding photographer. My bridesmaids are still quibbling over which dress they want and other major catastrophes but I know it's all going to work out.

And maybe, just maybe, my parents will see each other during the ceremony and realize they can't remember what it was they were so angry about in the first place.

Meanwhile, the bride and groom will be having the time of our lives at a honeymoon destination known and planned only by Eric. Well, that’s another thing I'm a little worried about….but where ever we end up, I know it will be good because we'll be there together.