Erin Torneo - The Bridal Wave: A Survival Guide to the Everyone-I-Know-Is-Getting-Married Years

INTRODUCTION

What Is the Bridal Wave?

Feeling overwhelmed by marriage mania? You arent alone

One minute, everything is peachy. You are living the independent life you dreamed of in college: youre on your own, nobody tells you what to do or how to do it, and heck, you can blow two weeks salary on a base-and-highlight if thats what you want. Who needs a husband when youve got a gal pal wholl do power yoga, grocery shopping, and a cheap manicure with you all in one afternoon? Then, wham!youre deluged with engagement parties, shower invites, and save-the-dates. Youve got eight weddings to attend, and you can forget that trip to Fiji youve been planning, as weekend after weekendnot to mention paycheck after paycheckget eaten up. Those friends you counted on for weekend Bloody Mary brunches are busy registering for designer housewares and 1,000-thread-count sheets. Suddenly, you realize youve been stranded on singles island while they paddle off in rafts made for two with their monogrammed towel sets and the Cuisinart food processor (that you bought them, even though you couldnt afford one for yourself).

The Bridal Wave is the culmination of familial, societal, cultural, and internal pressure to marry that strikes like a tidal wave, sweeping up your friends one by one and showering you with anxieties. The single, carefree life that you once celebrated is suddenly called into question at every turn. Conversations start to relentlessly revolve around whos getting married next or who might be on the verge of engagement. If youre not next in line, its easy to feel like the odd woman out. You may be in grad school kicking ass, you may be flying up the corporate ladder in your dream job, or you may be having the time of your life just trying to find your way. But if you dont have a ring around a certain finger or (gasp!) arent even in the running by a certain age, people are going to start asking: Why arent you seeing anyone? or Have you tried online dating? followed by the gentle suggestion that you lower your standards: What about Dan in Payroll? Hes been looking a lot better since that rash cleared up. Or you attend your younger sisters wedding without a date and someone elses relatives try to set you up with nice boys. The not-so-subtle subtext is screaming, You arent getting any younger! And how about those looks of forced enthusiasm when your married friends decide that you need to get out there and plan the dreaded Girls Night Out, where they sit nursing a Cosmo and encouraging you to chat up the dweeb at the bar, all the while silently thanking their lucky solitaires that they dont have to?

Being single can suck when youre made to feel like some kind of social leper for not having a serious boyfriend, but the fact is, even if youve got a guy you arent free from the wrath of the Bridal Wave. Those of us in relationships also face the firing squad, sometimes in a more overt waylike when your family corners you at Thanksgiving dinner and asks flat out, When are you two going to make it official? or your friends attack you after you return from vacation to see if he popped the question. Others will sneak a peak at your hand after a weekend in Vermont, Valentines Day, or any other engagement-appropriate occasion, then look up from your suddenly naked-feeling finger with eyes that say, Not this time either, huh?

But far and away, the most tormenting voice is the one in our own heads. When this first Bridal Wave strikes, usually in your mid-twenties, panic can set in. Formerly happy, sane, accomplished women turn insecure and desperate. Some among us decide to find a mate with as much tenacity as we pursue our MBAs. We buy bridal magazines and plan the ceremony down to the napkin rings even though theres no groom in the picture; or we hint continuously to our boyfriends (many of whom arent even worthy of us, truth be told). You may not even be sure you want to get married, but the point is, why the hell isnt he asking?! Racing thoughts at night fill our mind with unanswerable questions (though our parents, friends, and oftentimes complete strangers seem perfectly clear on what we need to do).

Or maybe you wake up one day and realize that thirty is bearing down on you like a Mack truck and according to the life plan you concocted when you were twenty, you should already be married. Your up-till-now-happy relationship is subject to severe scrutiny: Is he the one? Is there even time to meet a new one? Weve been together for three years already, so I cant just scrap the whole thing now.

Weve been there. We get it. And were here to say that enough is enough! Its time for a backlash. Not a backlash against marriage. Marriage is wonderful if that is what you want and if you have found the right person. After all, the pharmaceutical companies make it look so nice in their TV adstwo silver-haired people pushing seventy, holding hands and walking along the beach, sharing a lifetime of memories and, apparently, the benefits of the latest arthritis drug. We mean a backlash against the insanity. Against women feeling pressure to wed because they are sucked into the Bridal Wavethey dont want to be last, they dont want to be alone, they want to start a family, they want to beat a friend who seems to do everything first and better, they dont want to be the scary cat lady, or theyre conforming to a timeline they created when they were fifteen years old.

Most of us could sing the chorus to You Cant Hurry Love and Que Ser Ser, but for many of us take-charge, control-your-own-destiny types, this sit-back-and-let-life-happen philosophy is a hard pill to swallow. To get into a good college, we took SAT prep. To get those shoes that we cant live without, we whip out our plastic and charge them. Were used to going for what we want. Its really frustrating not knowing if its ever going to happen to you, says Karen, thirty-two, one of the many brave, gracious, gorgeous gals who shared their stories with us. The lack of control is horrifying. It makes you feel really girly and disempowered.

Were going to help you stay sane when youre neck deep in other peoples nuptials and your own inner turmoil. Why? Because we know a little something about itand even though you feel like youre the only one you know who isnt getting hitched any time soon, you arent alone. We sit on different sides of the great nuptial divide, but were both survivors of the Bridal Wave. This book is going to give you strategies and tips to ride the wave on your own terms.

From Erin

I was always the girl who knew when to cut and run. If a relationship was obviously not working out, I ended it and never looked back. But something changed in my mid-twenties. Engagement announcements, shower invites, and save-the-dates were all starting to flood my mailbox. They seemed to signal Entering Adulthood, and apparently I had some catching up to do. The guys I dated started bringing up the M-word as the inevitable next step, so I figured these were serious relationships that I had to invest time and effort in. Instead of throwing in the towel, I thought it was my job to fix what, looking back, were totally unfixable relationships. Like the trustafarian who claimed he was covering our expensive entres at a group birthday dinner, only to shortchange all of my friends who ordered the pasta. Or the poet who developed a fake online identity and tried to seduce underage girls with verse he penned for me. Or how about that lying letch who wound up in some stewardesss hotel room, taking seminude photos of her, which I was supposed to understand because it was all for his art?