Luminations of a New Wife

Message from The New Wife

It occurred to me that after I got engaged in August of 2004, all that most of my friends and family wanted to talk to me about was The Wedding.  Everything centered around The Wedding.  I'm also a Social Worker, and it's in my nature to think about issues and dynamics much more than the next person does.  It occurred to me during that time in my life that people's expectations of being engaged is just shy of literally becoming Cinderella herself.  This was clear to me through people's bubbling questions and expectations of me and how I must've felt and reacted to being Engaged. Obviously, life isn't always this transparent and people do not operate on such a surface level. In fact, I found my engagement year to be an incredibly trying one - there are so many changes occuring and so much planning for the future that we sometimes take the present for granted.  All the focus and emphasis is placed around The Wedding - a far-off, sometimes even non-existent date, which we expect with its arrival to absolve us of all of our anxieties and grievances with the present.

I'm making this site for those that need some help in navigating through their engagement.  I understand that getting engaged is a lot more complicated than just planning the event in itself.  It's about feelings, changing relationships, and a huge life transition that sometimes doesn't happen all on its own.  In addition to my social work background, I can also help you plan this thing.  I'm providing tons of information and reviews of vendors i've picked up along the way. I'm adding things you don't want to talk to your friends about, or even your mom (and of course not your fiance!) I'm adding a column centering exclusively around 'The Relationship' which will undergo many changes as it matures from bofriend-girlfriend status, to getting engaged, to being married.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed creating it.  Enjoy.  And Good Luck.

A Return to the 50's?

How full circle has our society become?! We are more 1950s today than the actual 1950's were.  Maureen Dowd's article in the NYTimes made me think that today, your average woman would rather trade in her CEO status for a dazzling 3 Carat ring status.  It's not even about getting married - it's about having babies. And young.

Women now are more likely to change their name to their husband's than ever before. Think of the studded and bedazzled "MRS." t-shirts that publicize and promote the "wife" status. As Maureen Dowd's article (on the left) points out, women now want to stay at home and be taken care of, becoming exactly the domestic goddess' the previous generation of women warned us against.

In a way it seems we are back to the basics, trying to re-define the role of a woman previous generations fought so hard to firmly establish. Can she be both a successful, working woman and a loving, nurturing mom? Does one ever suffer for the other?

Being a Newlywed...

One of the most recent questions I hear now is, "SO? How is married life?! What's it like?!" This is a pretty difficult one, because my answer is not so succinct and i'm still not even sure there IS an actual answer! But I do feel that there are subtle differences. On the night of our wedding, I remember the first thing as feeling "different" was being called Mrs. Gordon by the entire hotel staff. My husband and I played with this new name of mine for quite some time. Other things - on our honeymoon, we just felt MARRIED. This idea of being a married, honeymooning couple was reinforced by everyone around us who just looked at us and treated us as "honeymooners."

Now, on a day-to-day basis, I just feel more settled and secure with our married status. Things have calmed down tremendously. I'm not running around every weekend with wedding things to do - i'm not obsessing over details for the big day. Life has slowed down. There's more free time. My questions that would keep me up at night when I was engaged have all been answered, or at least are in the process of being answered. I no longer have to wonder what it will be LIKE to be married because, well, I am. Not all that much from that outside has changed, yet on the inside I feel incredibly different. We are a solidified unit which can't be compromised by stupid arguements resulting over which table we should seat our distant third cousins.

I also like seeing my husband wear his ring. I feel like it's OUR ring and I like picturing him wear it even when I'm not with him. These are the differences which can be hard to communicate to others yet only spoken and felt between husband and wife. Yes, I like that. 

What Came First - the Man or the Marriage?

Last night after seeing the Knicks play their (disappointing) home opener, we met friends for dinner. This other couple is also recently married, so we were discussing what it's like to be a newlywed, and how other people's impressions and fantasies of your first year of marriage are often slightly skewed from reality. Melissa told me about another one of our friends who is recently engaged, and has become obsessed with wedding planning. "She attends every single bridal show! She's made FRIENDS from these bridal shows! And then she asked how you were - if you are the happiest you have EVER been because you're now MARRIED!" We laughed and thought how some women grow up planning and fantasizing about their wedding ever since they were little girls. For Melissa and I, this wasn't so much the case. We happened to find a man, fell in love, and things clicked into place. Marriage became the next feasible step; it was the man that made us think of marriage, not the other way around. I thought it a curious question, what our engaged friend had asked. Am I the happiest I have ever been BECAUSE i'm married? I'm happy because i'm with Steve. I'm happy AND i'm married. The marriage didn't make me happy...the man did.

The Wedding Coach

I've always thought getting married and planning a wedding are two entirely different things. Getting married is romantic, idealistic - it tends to be what we as little girls used to dream of. The proposal itself is a fairytale come true. No matter how he asks, it's one of the best, most memorable moments of your life. Planning a wedding ladies, is quite a different story. It's so much more than just event planning, it's about intertweaving the lives of two people, including their families and friends as well. It can be exhausting and at times overwhelming to seek out the best vendors, stay on a timeline and focus on a budget, all while trying to keep this fairytale romance of  a wedding alive.

I found one of the most helpful things for me was to talk to other people about my experience of being engaged. You'll find that others might even feel similarly. I even found my own "wedding coach." Yep, that's right, a wedding coach. I was lucky enough to have a close friend that recently got married, and had experienced similar issues that I was during my own engagement. Lisa was understanding, never judgmental, and full of concrete advice. She kept me on schedule, but most importantly she kept me sane. The best advice I can give to those who are recently engaged is to seek out a supportive person in your life that has been through all this before, who can most of all listen to you, offer you sound advice and make you realize what you are feeling is NORMAL!

Who's fairytale is it?

I've always thought that it is the people around us who maintain the fantasy that becoming a bride and getting married is  just short of becoming an enchanted fairytale itself.  So, I thought it part of my duty, as a bride-to-be, to contradict this notion and expose the reality of it all -- all of it -- from grueling wedding planning details to meshing family systems, to the anxiety of life transitioning - not fairytale topics, indeed! The other day I overheard two women, one who appeared to be newly engaged, talking about her upcoming nuptials. It occurred to me that it isn't OTHERS who maintain this fairytale, it can be the brides-to-be who do it as well. This particular wed-to-be was talking to her friend about her upcoming wedding with such gusto and fervor I thought she was going to keel right over in the manicure salon.  She was scribbling furiously on a piece of a paper she asked the manicurist to borrow, flipping her hair and bicking her pen, showing details and diagrams to her un-wed friend sitting by her. I really was laughing inside though I'm sure my face could not hide my curiousity seeping slowly into repugnance. I mean we all think our own weddings are the greatest, but there needs to be a line drawn, and I just drew it right there in the manicure salon on 23rd street.

I then listened closer and realized it wasn't her breathtaking, over-the-top wedding she was talking about, it was her ring! Her damned wedding band! She was drawing pictures of diamonds to her friend she so desperately needed to scribble on that piece of borrowed paper. I really felt badly for her friend, who at this point was acquiescent, resting her head on her hand, displaying obligatory oohs and aahs and smiling at all the right placements of trillion-pronged diamonds. Is this really the image of her marriage this wed-to-be wanted to promote? Surely she enjoyed the ideas of Cinderella her friend and manicurist were conjuring. Is this really what keeps this bride-to-be synchronized to the ticking to her wedding day countdown? How many trillions she wanted packed in that band of hers?

My nails finished drying and I smiled at this girl, this unwed friend who just looked worn-out in this sea of wedding hype. And she smiled back this type of smile that could wink if it could. Because we both knew the bridezilla nymphs from the same fairytale story this bride-to-be concocted overtook her, and we both hoped they would return her when she finally got to the other end of the aisle.

The New Wife on The New Life

There's so much build up leading up to the wedding day itself that it can be all consuming. Though i've been critical of "bridezillas" in the past, one could see how easy it is to morph into one.  As a bride-to-be you can grow obsessed with all things wedding, oftentimes to the sacrifice of all the other important things around you.  Life seems to work in slow-motion leading up to the wedding, everything is so well thought out, details agonized over. The wedding arrives - it's a beautiful event (regardless of the details!) and then it's over. As quickly as everything began it quickly wilts away. There's no more weekends spent pounding the pavements searching for just the right shade of lavendor to include in your bridal bouquet. Sleepless nights spiced with animated dreams are replaced with dreamless ones. Life returns to you. It's yours again - but this time it's more settled and secure. You can return to the things you once enjoyed but had no time for, and you and your partner can return to the people you were before all the follies began.

The biggest misconception of married life is....

I've asked some married New Wife readers to tell me what they think is the biggest misconception of getting married and becoming a wife. Here are your really insightful comments:

“a big misconception is that things change when you get married. So far--everything is pretty much the same!”

“we supposedly live in this little bubble of wedded bliss”

“I think the biggest misconception is that getting married is the ultimate in solving all relationship problems. I think most people just think of the wedding as a goal to surpass, and once you're there, everything's roses”.

“family reunions will be less stressful because my husband will be there”

“I will magically become the weight and height that I always wanted”

And the reality, girls:

“a lot of issues get pushed off the table during wedding planning, and once that's gone, the issues come up again.”

“Family reunions were easier at first, but now that he's part of the family, now we've got to deal with HIS stress regarding my family, too, and vice versa!”

“People don't realize that marriage is a lot of work. It's just as hard, and usually harder, to be married/committed in that way as it is to be in a dating relationship.”

“my married friends say they fought a lot during their first year especially those who hadn't lived together first. Finances and family were the two "hot" topics for most of them.”

And remember, we’re all the smarter for entering marriage already aware of what’s to be expected and what’s just simply not.

Wearing the ring

A few weeks ago I asked you your thoughts on the meaningfulness of wearing your ring. Do you wear them? Do you not? If so, to whom does the ring mean the most?

It seems like for most of you, the rings symbolize the promise you and your husband made together, rather than an "advertisement" that you're hitched. Here are some of your comments:

"I don't wear my ring all the time; I often take it off to do household chores and forget to put it back on. My husband doesn't wear his ring most of the time because it's a job hazard."

"Yes, they are a symbol and they are important to us, but we know what we've promised to each other. We don't need to advertise it."

"I definitely think it means more to me than anyone else. I just remember putting it on the first time, and thinking how "married" I felt. LOL. I have always thought of it as a symbol, though, and my husband just has never really been like that and it took him a while to even get used to wearing it."

"Yes, I still wear my engagement ring. I LOVE it and I hate not wearing it. It means so much to me..there are times whne I can look at it and just get a little butterfly in my stomach...my wedding band doesn't really do that for me...don't really know why."

"The ring means the most to both me and my husband. It's symbol of what we have and our lives together."

"My husband definitely wears his more. I take mine off at home. He wears his 24/7."

"I don't wear them in order to have to validate myself to this world saying "hey, lookie, I'm married". It's a symbol of our committment and I am proud to wear it, but couldn't care less what other people think (ie: friends and others in general)."

"I have to say though, it is SO nice to have my ring on when we go out. I was always so sick of telling guys "I have a boyfriend". Now I can say "look, I really AM with someone......back off". ;)"

Blog-lebrity?

We were at a friend's 30th birthday party this weekend at Rosa Mexicana (on the west side) and I met a girl who is getting married in April in New York City.  We were talking about what planning a wedding is like and I mentioned for her to check out The New Wife for advice and support, and wouldn't you know - she had already found us through a friend of her's! Through the web-magical internet our little website found it's way on her computer screen.....

Anyways, she and her mom are writing a book on how to plan a wedding without losing your mind.  In the meantime, check out their site on Bridal Coaching which focuses on stress-management for the bride-to-be, and provides calming services for the bride and her entourage before the day arrives.

As a wed-to-be I definitely would've been interested in these services....check out what they have to say:

You've dreamed about your wedding day....Congratulations! You're engaged! Between proposal and promise, you now realize there is a great deal of planning and preparation. Too many "To-Do's" can make you feel overwhelmed. Conflicting egos, in-laws, and too many cooks in the kitchen can make you feel anxious, tired, off-balance and doubtful.

From rings to roses, weight loss to wedding gowns, bridesmaids to banquet rooms, Jeri will provide you with the tools to deal with decisions and disappointments. You will learn to easily navigate the mountains and valleys that typically define your path to the altar!