Ilene Beckerman - Mother of the Bride: The Dream, the Reality, the Search for a Perfect Dress

also by ILENE BECKERMAN
Love, Loss, and What I Wore
What We Do for Love
Makeovers at the Beauty Counter of Happiness
The Smartest Woman I Know

written and illustrated by
Ilene Beckerman

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014

2000 by Ilene Beckerman.
All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.

E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-778-4

The daughter is for the mother at once her double and another person...
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
DEDICATED TO MY DAUGHTERS

ALL MOTHERS want their daughters to get married.

To most mothers, a daughter in a marriage thats just okay is better than a daughter whos single and happy.

Still, as much as we want our daughters to be married, no woman is prepared for being the mother of the bride. I should know. Ive married off three daughters.

To tell you the truth, childbirth was easier than being the mother of the bride.

THE FIRST wedding I ever went to was my cousin Sallys. I was ten. Id only seen Sally twice. She came from the wrong side of the family. I didnt know why we were invited, but I did hear someone say, If you invite one second cousin, you have to invite all the second cousins.

The next wedding I remember was at the Loews movie theater on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. It was 1947 and there was a film clip of Elizabeth II marrying Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten on the Path News Reel.

My mother-of-the-bride story begins with the conception of my daughter, which took about five seconds; briefly covers my pregnancy, which took the usual nine months; and ends with the planning of my daughters wedding, which took a year.

Forty years later, planning my daughters wedding, I remembered that film clip and wondered if the Queen Mother had as many headaches when her first daughter Elizabeth married Philip of Greece as I had when my first daughter Isabelle married Steven of Long Island.

The Conception

Al and I came straight home after the movies (Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand in Lets Make Love), shared half a box of Yodels, and went to bed hoping to make a baby.

Afterwards, I got up and finished the Yodels.

After.

The Pregnancy

I went to the doctor three weeks after I missed my period. The doctor thought I might be pregnant, but he needed to do a rabbit testinject my urine into a healthy rabbitto make sure. It was 1959, and thats what they did then.

When the test came back, I was joyous. The rabbit wasnt.

In those days, nobody could tell the sex of a baby until it was born. I wanted a girl. The only names I liked were Pamela, Jessica, and Victoria. (I watched a lot of soap operas.)

Oh, John. Oh, Jessica.

Right from the start, I wanted my daughters world to be perfect. I listened to Excerpts from the Worlds Greatest Symphonies with the speaker on my stomach.

Beethovens Fifth. My first.

I stopped reading Cosmopolitan, joined the Book-of-the-Month Club, and read aloud to my stomach.

I went to the Museum of Modern Art a lot. There was never a line in the ladies room.

I was going to be the perfect mother. I stopped smoking. I wore sensible shoes with arch support. I took Stuarts Prenatal Vitamins. I bought Dr. Spocks The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care in hardcover.

I was going to give my daughter all the mothering Id missed because my mother had died when I was young. When she was young.

I was going to be the mother I always wanted to haveloving, understanding, optimistic, and fun. My daughter was going to be so happy.

She was going to be the daughter I always wanted to bebrilliant, artistic, beautiful, thin. I was going to be so happy.

We were both so lucky.

Lucky us.

May 27, 1960, I gave birth to a girl.

Every baby is a miracle. Every baby is beautiful. My daughter was even better than that.

MANY YEARS later, at eleven oclock on a Friday night, my daughter flew into the house. Mom, look! she shouted and stuck out her left hand.

I saw a ring you wouldnt be afraid to wear on a subway.

Im engaged! she shrieked and ran to the telephone.

I thought about my daughterall the dancing lessons and piano lessons. The orthodontist and the dermatologist. The fancy summer camp that had horseback riding. Her junior year abroad. MasterCards and Visas. Bloomingdales and Saks. Closets full of shoes.

I thought about my future son-in-law. He was tall. He did have nice hair. Was he good enough for her? How could he possibly be?

Spreading the news.

I thought about the fairy tales I had read to my daughter when she was littleCinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty. There was always a Prince Charming.

I remembered reading about the Duke of Windsor abdicating his throne for Wallis Simpson in 1936. He said, I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King without the help and support of the woman I love.

It was even more romantic than a fairy tale.

I wondered what Wallis had that my daughter didnt?

Wallis.

I HAD always hoped my daughter would marry someone with initials after his last name.

Or Roman numerals.

Or someone who looked like Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass.

I asked my daughter what she and her fianc would live on.

My grandmother had asked me the same question when I got engaged.