Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Under Electric Candlelight



I met a graduate student in my book club—she’s engaged to a post-doc here.  They are planning a small wedding.  She told me she wasn’t wearing a ring because she’d rather use the money to go to Alaska.  Oh, how I love a sensible woman.

Except when I was 27 I wasn’t so sensible. I ignored my mother’s advice when I was planning my big, fun Jewish wedding.  She told me that if she were me, she would use the money for a time-share in Hawaii.  Funny, when I look at my wedding photos, my mother is laughing and dancing the most of anyone.  Maybe she was relieved she was able to marry off such a big-mouthed daughter.

I think we would have had a different type of engagement and wedding if we had waited, but we were young and romantic.  He got down on his knee to propose to me in a park in London.  I remember he was crying and I was afraid he was going to tell me he had a terminal disease.  Later, I tried to talk him into getting married in Mexico, me in a white sundress and he in a pair of shorts, barefoot on the beach.  The Professor was horrified, afraid of the drinking water and inability to confirm travel plans through American Express.  Plus, he had always envisioned a formal wedding, complete with tuxedo and gown.  He probably played house as a child, too. 

I am glad we went for it, though.  We both loved our wedding day.  It was beautiful and it’s tough to beat celebrating with family and best friends and a few tables full of people we can’t identify now.  We drank champagne and danced all night.  And I’ve got the album to prove it.

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