Allison Moir-Smith - Emotionally Engaged: A Brides Guide to Surviving the Happiest Time of Her Life

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Table of Contents

A PLUME BOOK

EMOTIONALLY ENGAGED

ALLISON MOIR-SMITH, MA, is a psychotherapist who specializes in counseling brides-to-be and founded Emotionally Engaged Counseling for Brides in 2002. An expert on cold feet and engagement anxiety, she has appeared on Today and Good Morning America and has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Elegant Wedding, and Elle. Allison has a masters degree in counseling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and a bachelors degree from Dartmouth College. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughter.

For information about her bridal counseling services (in person or on the phone) and workshops for brides-to-be, visit her Web site at www.emotionallyengaged.com.

For Jason

CHAPTER 1

The Happiest Time of My Life? Yeah, Right.

It all started off happily enough.

In fact, Im embarrassed to admit that I was an Insert Groom bride-to-be. You know the type: the single woman who secretly fantasizes about her wedding in such detail that when she finally meets Mr. Right and he proposes, planning the wedding is a snap. From the moment Jason popped the question, my secret wedding fantasy was unleashed.

I could picture it well: in eleven months time, 120 guests would witness our marriage ceremony, held in a field on my parents property beside the Connecticut River in New Hampshire. My maid of honor and two flower girls would be wearing sunny, canary yellow dresses, with daisies tucked behind their ears. Jason would wear a bright yellow tie to match. Wed toast with champagne in my mothers garden in its full summer glory and have dinner and dancing under a big white tent in the backyard.

My vision of our wedding was so complete that just two weeks after Jason proposed, Id booked all the big-ticket itemsthe caterer, the tent, the DJ, and the Port-O-Potties (a nasty necessity for a home wedding like ours). Id even secured the services of a wedding coordinator to ensure smooth sailing. All I had to do for the rest of our engagement, I figured, was register for gifts (fun with a scanning gun!), be feted by friends (kitchen shower, or bath?), worry about the weather (I hope it doesnt rain!), and, of course, revel in how lucky I was to be marrying the love of my life. Id kissed a lot of frogs during my eleven years in Manhattan, so I knew how right our relationship was for me.

For two years, Jason and I sat side by side in graduate school. As we worked toward our masters degrees in counseling psychology, our friendship deepened, slowly but surely. Over time, this handsome, smart man with a big, compassionate heart became one of my closest friends. During the final week of classes, our friendship bloomed into love. A year later we were engaged, and I had that perfect foundation for a relationship that had always seemed so elusive when I was going on blind dates: I was marrying my best friend.

With Jason, I felt more natural, beautiful, and myself than I ever had before in a relationship. I felt appreciated and accepted, supported and safe. (He even found my wedding fantasies endearing.) I loved, trusted, and admired him far more than any other man Id known. We both felt an enormous amount of promise and hope about our married life together, and we were grateful to have found each other.

So you can imagine that when, a few weeks after Jason proposed, I started to feel sad, anxious, and irritable for days at a time, I was confused, to say the least. One minute Id be giddily looking through books of invitations, the next Id be lost in thought, reminiscing about some long-ago family vacation, nearly brought to tears by the memory. And at times, I became a complete bridezillaa bitchy, self-absorbed, entitled, wedding-obsessed, perfectionistic, stressed-out nightmare of a person. (Which, I promise, is completely out of character.) There were days when, if a vendor didnt return my phone call within twenty-four hours, Id go ballistic. If I missed a date on my to-do list, Id panic that the whole schedule was out of whack. If someone offered a simple suggestion about our wedding, Id be offended.

As the weeks wore on, I began to feel a deep pit of sadness in my stomach about leaving my single life, which baffled me because I was happy (and relieved) to have finally found my mate. At other times I felt paralyzed by fear of the future, even though being married to Jason was exactly what I wanted. When I talked to certain family members and friends about the wedding, I felt overwrought with guilt, like I was abandoning them by going off and getting married.

What I was feeling just didnt make sense; the contradictory emotions did not compute. What the hell was going on with me?

By the time the six-month countdown to our wedding began, the giddy and productive Insert Groom bride had completely vanished, and I sank into a dark, sad hole. Insomnia haunted me. Late at night Id roam the apartment, worrying that Id be a depressed bride. I envisioned myself walking listlessly down the aisle, indifferent to my husband-to-be and assembled guests. In those middle-of-the-night hours, I felt isolated and alone, cut off and unsupported by my family and friends, none of whom seemed to understand what I was feeling. When I tried to explain myself to them, they stared back at me quizzically, unable to fathom why I was upset when I should be so happy.

Worst of all, the emotional roller coaster I was on scared me. Oh my God, I thought to myself. If Im feeling this upset all the time, does it mean I should call off the wedding?

Then my mother and I started talking about lasagna, and everything fell apart.

The menu Jason and I had created for our casual rehearsal-dinner picnic beside a pond was supposed to be simple and fun. We thought that lasagna, Kentucky Fried Chicken, salads, beer, wine, and Klondike bars for dessert would be a nice contrast to the fancier sit-down wedding reception the following day.

Planning it, however, became a mother-daughter wrestling match. I was thirty-four years old, but I felt like a teenager again. My emotions were on full blast, as theyd been in high school, and again, I felt like I was on the losing side of a power struggle with my mom. The conversations between us went something like this:

MOM: How do you plan on keeping the lasagna warm?

ME: Itll be hot when the caterers deliver it.

MOM (one week later): How do you know it will be delivered hot?

ME: Because its their job.

MOM (three weeks later): Why dont you keep them in the ovens at the club during cocktails?

ME: Okay, Mom. Good idea.

MOM (a week after that): I dont think the ovens are big enough. How do you know the ovens are big enough?

ME: Ill ask.

MOM (two weeks later): Im still worried about the lasagna being hot.

ME: Oh my God, Mom! Okay, well rent chafing dishes.

MOM (the next day): Do you really think chafing dishes will work?

ME: Good Lord, Mom, yes! And if they dont, well have it lukewarm, because we dont care that much.

MOM (two weeks later): You know, lukewarm lasagna isnt very pleasant.

Each time we spoke on the phone, Mom mentioned the lasagna. No solution I offered allayed her worries. She talked to my dad about it (I dont know how Allisons going to keep the lasagna hot); to my two brothers (Im worried about the lasagna); and to my four sisters (Lukewarm lasagna isnt very nice, dont you agree?). Even Cookie, her cleaning lady, got an earful (Allisons having lasagna delivered to the rehearsal dinner), as did anyone else whod listen. My mother was driving me crazy, driving them crazy, and yet she could not be stopped. Or shut up.

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