Bryce Gruber’s Thoughts of the Day: Wedding Dresses Edition

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well. -Oliver Goldsmith

1) It’s been a while… since I’ve written any thoughts of the day, but I’ve finally got my thoughts from the past month or so calculated enough to put down on paper the internet. I tried on wedding dresses for the first time in my life last week, and I had about a million rushes of emotions and a simultaneous numbness all at once. The numbness came from my lack of a desire for a big, crazy wedding. In fact, I was never a little girl who imagined getting married with a big party or anything. I just wanted a family and a house and a backyard with a really nice grill. It was never about the wedding for me, but always about the idea that I’d get smushed together with some other human who I’d know was my perfect soulmate and we’d get to live mostly happily ever after. It was only when I announced that I was actually engaged that everyone around me started to ask for a when, where, how big, and “is it going to be black tie?”

2) I was overwhelmed. But it was perfect. In my frenzied lack of logical answers for people (you can’t imagine how many times I uttered the words, “I mean, I’m still not sure what the date is yet.”) I realized one thing: I just wanted to sort of run off with my soon-to-be-husband and be his wife. That’s it. At some point, my dear friends Gary and Jenn pulled me down to Earth and reminded me that I couldn’t just run off and magically be his wife… I’d have to do something ceremonial, spiritual, and meaningful to mark the beginning of a life and family together. And so we went dress shopping.

3) I was looking for simple. I wanted simple because I just wanted a small, intimate gathering of friends and family to join me for one of the happiest days of my life (Benny’s birth is WAY up there, too). I wanted a dress that was easy to hold a 3 year old in (he still likes to be carried when he’s tired), elegant and lacy, and not so expensive that it’d rival the cost of a year of tuition at a Manhattan preschool. I also needed something relatively modest, because even though I’ve done some less-than-modest things in my life, I don’t want anyone to gasp or faint at this wedding in my relatively conservative Jewish synagogue. I want the focus to be on the idea of a new family being joined together and not necessarily on a plunging neckline or some transparent silk.

Was this the one? Not at all, but the experience of trying the dresses on brought me to tears at the end for a host of reasons, perhaps most importantly I realized that I’m truly appreciative of all the people I love. Did I love some of the dresses? Sure. Was there one that caught me totally off-guard and made me want to commit then and there? Sure, but the real joy came from sharing the moment with my friends and realizing that either way I’d get to marry the right guy and have the family life I had always imagined, offer my son another loving family member, and hopefully end up with that jazzy grill on a NYC balcony one day soon.