The dress, the ring, the registry and the rest

Tag : zirconium tube
The dress, the ring, the registry and the rest By Teresa Strasser (08/01/2008) Two months after I met Daniel, we sat on his bed late at night andI said, "If we ever get married, let's just go to city hall likeMarilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. Big weddings freak me out. I don'tlike lots of people staring at me, I don't like inconveniencingpeople because it's 'my special day,' and I hate waste. The idea ofspending $50,000 on a party is just no-can-do."
He agreed on all fronts. We had a disgusting conversation about howwe are truly soulmates. Recreating any part of that chat would beso cloying you would feel like you just snorted butter creamfrosting off a wedding cake.
It was easy to talk big before we got engaged this past Valentine'sDay.
It turns out that parents, no matter how groovy and liberal (in mycase), don't love the idea of raising a daughter only to miss outon this rite of passage.
His parents lost their only daughter, Lynn, in a car accident 10years ago. Could I rob them of this major milestone, after theymissed out on so many by losing their child when she was only 30?Did I want to join his family with the clear communication that I'ma selfish too cool for a real wedding and, by the way, I'm stealingyour son? I couldn't say, "I don't" to a communal "I do."
We settled on a small ceremony, just 15 of us, at a casino chapelin Vegas. That feels right. Monroe and DiMaggio got divorcedanyway.
With an actual wedding ceremony in the offing, I was going to haveto wear something, and my anxiety about this was manifesting itselfin a series of nightmares.
The one time I flipped through a bridal magazine, I saw an articlecalled, "Ten Wedding Dresses Under $900." Most of my cars have beenunder $900, and I don't drive them for one day and convince myselfmy daughter will drive them again-for one day-in 30 years.
Brides persuade themselves, their tailors, their trainers and theirpocketbooks that this must be the best they will ever look in theirlives. This moment that is supposed to be about eternal union ismore about capturing eternal beauty in a photo that's going to bemounted in the living room so everyone can silently think, "Man,she used to be a lot thinner."
What to wear was a small question compared to the larger quandarythat was emerging: I wondered how we could include Lynn, Daniel'ssister, into our ceremony.
It's not like anyone was going to not notice her absence, these bigoccasions being a time you most miss those who have passed. I wassure it was going to bring back memories of her wedding just a fewyears before she died. I struggled for a way to invite thesister-in-law I would never meet to her little brother's wedding. Ithought about the smashing of the glass (which they offer in Vegasfor a few extra bucks, by the way) and how among myriadexplanations for this tradition my favorite has always been thatit's important to remember sadness at the height of personal joy.
When I first started dating Daniel, I caught myself staring atframed pictures of his sister, looking regal and reserved, withDaniel's eyes and nose. I knew they were very close, but Daniel,being similarly reserved, didn't talk about her much.
This brings me back to the question of the gown.
Somehow, the idea of me wearing Lynn's wedding dress came up inconversation. Daniel said his mother still had the gown, sitting ina box in her closet.
I didn't want his family to be traumatized or freaked out by theidea, but when he ran it by them they were thrilled, and I felt socompletely embraced. And that's how it is that I agreed to wear adress I had never seen, that was worn more than a decade ago.
When that giant package came in the mail, I wasn't totally immuneto bridal vanity. I said a silent prayer that I would look decentin the dress and that I would have no trouble squeezing into it.Daniel helped me step into his sister's gown, a perfectly preservedivory satin confection with a high neckline and two tasteful bowsin back. It had dainty satin cuffs at the end of fragile meshsleeves. Though she was taller, it fit almost perfectly with a pairof heels.
The trend in bridal gowns today is overtly sexy, conjuring imagesof someone standing behind a velvet rope rather than walking downan aisle.
From the pictures I've now seen, the conservative style suited Lynnperfectly, and it fits me somehow too. I might be the mostout-of-style bride you will see this June wedding season, or maybeI'll just look like a fashion renegade, or maybe I just don't care,because my sister-in-law will be at my wedding in spirit, and satinand silk and bows.
Daniel and I don't disagree on much, but he insists that wearingthe dress was my idea. He's wrong: I have a very clear memory ofhim asking me to wear her dress. We have joke fights about this allthe time, but the truth is this: If it wasn't his idea and itwasn't mine, maybe it was hers. I once had to buy my friend a"culinary torch" as a wedding present. It was the only thing Icould afford on her registry.
Far be it from me to suggest that a newly wedded couple doesn'tneed the capacity to properly caramelize creme brulee, but it'ssafe to say that gone are the days when we all lived at home beforemarriage and had to set up a household from scratch, when we simplyneeded the basics to start a life together. In fact, now that we'regetting married later in life, and often while alreadycohabitating, wedding registries can seem more like a socialcontract than a necessity; the couple treats you to dinner and anopen bar, you send a gift from Crate & Barrel.
For many brides, this is their Special Day, and along with it comesthe long-anticipated thrill of picking one's china pattern. I'm inno position to be judgmental about how commercial it's allbecome-bridal registries are now a $14 billion industry-becausedespite loving high heels, Oprah and lip gloss, I am missing thefemale wedding gene.
So, it's easy for me to get sanctimonious when visions of tiarasand name cards and veils never once danced a first dance in myhead.
I don't want to set a culinary torch to any bride's dreams ofcrystal decanters, silverware storage boxes or ocean-themed napkinrings. Those just aren't my dreams.
On the other hand, I also don't dream of staring at "Cat on Porch,"the title of a watercolor painted by my aunt Ruth, an objet d'artshe was planning to send our way if we didn't register
According to my mom, people were going to have the urge to send usgifts. If we didn't register, we were liable to end up with "Cat onPorch" and other handmade delights and freestyle gift choices. Shewas putting the pressure on, and moms may annoy but they are rarelywrong.
The fact that we weren't throwing a traditional wedding (only 15invitees to the actual ceremony), but instead planning twopost-ceremony cocktail parties, made asking for gifts even morecomplicated. Still, registering for a honeymoon seemed odd andasking folks to donate to our favorite charity, while beautiful inprinciple, seems unsatisfying to the gift-giver.
That's how we ended up at a place I'll call the Ceramic Shack.
We entered the Shack and were trapped there for hours. For mostcouples, I would venture this critical pre-wedding time would bebetter spent discussing how to raise the kids, conduct the familyfinances, spend holidays. Instead, we were pondering the differencebetween standard and European shams.
When it was all over, we stumbled out onto the street, squintingfrom the sunlight, like newly freed hostages. We felt like POWs,Prisoners of Wedding. I needed a Jamba Juice just to work my way upto exhausted.
Now that we've gotten our first gift, a beautiful toile quilt, Ithink my mom was right. One has to account for the human impulse togive in celebration of a major milestone. And to be honest, when Iran into the bride who got the culinary torch, she beamed about thetarts she'd made her husband. It warmed my heart, but not as muchas an idea that sparked my brain.
I don't always get fantastic ideas at my annual girlie exam. Thisyear, however, I happened on an idea relevant to registries. ThereI was, when the doctor asked me if we intended to start a familyafter getting married. When I said we were, she suggested the"Ashkenazi Jewish panel" and sent me next door. The panel is aseries of genetic tests that detect mutations associated with 11disorders that commonly occur in Ashkenazi Jews, including cysticfibrosis and Tay-Sachs.
"We're having trouble getting any more blood out of this vein," thenurse whispered. "Oh, and by the way, these tests are ... reallyexpensive."
"How much?" I asked, waiting for more blood to trickle into hertube.
As it happens, the cash price for the full panel can run between$3,000 and $4,000. Costs vary depending on the provider, andinsurance companies might cover some or all of that cost; thenagain, given our health care system, it might not.
That's when it struck me: A way to combine my aversion to the wholeidea of the wedding registry with my hospital sticker shock.
Could a national chain of labs create a bridal registry for genetictesting? Someone could buy me cystic fibrosis test, for example (Ilearned I'm a carrier, as are one in 26 Ashkenazi Jews andnon-Jewish Caucasians). Next to each disease could be the cost ofthe test and a brief description of the symptoms and prognosis.
Do I want to find out if I carry Tay-Sachs or if the Ceramic Shackcarries a toaster? Wait, there's the slogan: Testing, not toasting!
This is either the most romantic or least romantic idea I have everhad. In any case, it's too late for me. I will be grateful for anygifts I get from the Ceramic Shack. Still, I'll always carry atorch for my genetic testing registry idea. I was alone, poised atmy laptop, longing for the wedding photos of first daughter JennaBush to finally post.
I had to see what she was wearing, ogle a close-up shot of herring. I thought Jenna looked perfect, by the way, hair a bittousled, not too formal. Laura Bush fell a little too in love withthe color turquoise, if you ask me, but the bride was flawless.
It's hard not to be intoxicated by the large rocks on the fingersof celebrity brides. Once I mined for information, however, it washarder than a diamond itself to believe what a racket the industryhas been running since 1938, when it hired an advertising agency toconvince Americans that diamonds equal eternal love.
According to experts, diamonds are not scarce and they have littleintrinsic value. Because the tradition of diamond engagement ringsis so ubiquitous, I was shocked to find out it was such a recentphenomenon. It was, in fact, nothing but the calculated strategy ofDe Beers to deal with an increasing supply of diamonds, combinedwith an all-time-low demand after the Great Depression, accordingto "Not Forever," a thorough piece on the history of diamonds onSalon.com. The "A Diamond Is Forever" ad campaign established in1947 was astonishingly effective: sales of De Beers diamondsskyrocketed.
How much should a man spend on this arguably valueless hunk ofrock? Why, guess who developed the formula? De Beers!
A buying guideline still largely in effect originated from thecompany's marketing materials in the early 20th century, suggestinga man spend from two to three month's salary on an engagement ring.
Clever corporate persuasion aside, you don't need Leonardo DiCaprioto tell you that the diamond industry exploits workers, many ofthem children, fuels bloodshed and social strife, funds deadlycivil wars and, on top of that, the process of mining dirties theenvironment and strips local ecosystems. What a romantic notion: Achild working for slave wages may have pulled your very rock out ofthe ground before the price was artificially inflated and yourman-under more pressure than a carbon atom 100 miles below theearth's surface-had to buy it for you to announce his monthlyincome to the world.
Even if the mining of diamonds wasn't an ethical or environmentalconcern, the idea that starting a lifetime together with a badinvestment (diamonds have a notoriously low resale value) hurts theblue-collar girl I am to my core. My dad was a mechanic. I havespent many years underemployed in my field and may do so again. Allof this directs me toward one deeply felt truth: For me, diamondsare not a girl's best friend. A nest egg is a girl's best friend. Adown payment is a girl's best friend.
And when it comes to bling, science may be your true BFF.
Listen, I'm not standing here on my Dr. Bronner's soapbox tellingyou I can wrap a string of hemp around my ring finger and go on my"marry" way. I wanted a solution that was both pretty andmindful-which is how I discovered cultured diamonds.
For a couple of years now, small machines have been able toreplicate the heat and pressure that turn carbon into diamond underthe earth's surface, creating in a lab what are chemically,physically and optically diamonds. I'm not talking about cubiczirconium. These are the real deal, and a real deal at less than 25percent the cost of a mined diamond. Cultured diamonds can beproduced in colors, mainly canary, but they have become clearer inrecent years.
My man sought out one of these stones, had it set and I haven'tstopped staring at the vivid yellow gem since he popped thequestion.
To give both cultured and mined diamonds their due, they are thehardest substance known, with the highest thermal conductivity.That means they are not only tough but can withstand high heatwithout getting burned. These are excellent qualities for bothgemstones and marriage metaphors.
The difference is this: While love can't be forged in a lab, thediamonds that can are a far more fitting symbol of humanconnection. When I glance down at my own ring, the cut and colorare stunning, but it's the clarity that catches my eye.