by Jianna Heuer
Yesterday I threw out my wedding dress.
It has lived in the deepest corner of the coat closet for years. I found it still encased in Madame Paulette's powder blue strait-jacket. When the tailor gave it to me all those years ago, perfectly altered to my 29-year-old body, they used the sheath to keep this oh-so-precious object safe.
It was a raucous night, going on hours past its official end. When we returned to our room, elated by the party high, I unceremoniously dumped the dress back in the garment bag, barely on its hanger.
I never took it out to try it on while getting wine drunk and listening to Maxence Cyrin's "Where is my Mind," the song we walked down the aisle to. Nor did I unearth it on our anniversary each year and lovingly stroke it, reminiscing about what magic our wedding day was, those two ubiquitous things they do in every wedding rom-com. Until yesterday, I hadn't seen it since the weekend we got married. We moved twice, started our own businesses, traveled, lived through a pandemic, and opened a bookstore together. We've been too busy having a marriage and a life for me to be playing dress up. It is strange, though, that this thing that cost me more than I have ever spent on any item of clothing before or since is discarded and forgotten, especially when I am so careful about money and tend to take care of what I spend it on.
Like many women before me, I wanted to be stunning on my special day, which required this particular kind of white garment. It was a creamy white satin, perfect for my toasted sesame-colored skin. A tasteful V-neck in front, backless with a cascade of ruffles falling to the floor in a short train. A cathedral-length veil topped it off that didn't even make it back to the blue bag, lost in the jubilation of our wedding night. I was the thinnest, fittest, and most beautiful I have ever been the day I wore my wedding dress. I felt like a princess in that dress, though one with a curse, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.
My father and brother did not see me in my wedding dress that beautiful day in October when we married at sunset on a rooftop in Queens. My brother was in prison, and my dad chose not to attend after we got into a fight about my brother being in prison. My wedding day was (mostly) fantastic, filled with love and play, but it was no fairytale. Some of my bridesmaids were bitchy, making snide comments about the venue or how my hair had come out. Some of the groomsmen were late and seemed to have an air of not giving a fuck. I felt the absence of my father and brother the most at the moment before I walked down the aisle, like a fist squeezing my spleen, something like fear mixed with panic and melancholy.
Did I neglect my gown the same way my father neglected me, and my brother neglected himself? I didn't take it back to Madame Paulette's to get it put away properly in its pristine box to be preserved for all time, even though the service came with my $300 in alterations. Why wouldn't I have taken the 15-minute subway ride, and had it cleaned, treated, and taken care of, this beautiful, expensive thing meant to be treasured?
Perhaps I didn't bother, not because of my mixed feelings about my family at my wedding, but because I knew this was no heirloom. There would be no daughter or granddaughter to pass it along to. We got married in tacit agreement that bringing children into this world is a non-negotiable "no" for us. There is too much pain and suffering, humans can't be trusted, climate change, and wars; it would be cruel to bring another life into this harsh place. What need is there to preserve a thing that will have no heir?
I could have donated it to someone less fortunate. I should have done that. But now it's too late, yellowed beyond repair from the past 11 years of sitting in its filth from the hours of dancing shoeless under the stars gazing over the New York City skyline. I should have cared for it so someone else could have enjoyed it as I (mostly) did.
My wedding dress was perfect on my not-so-perfect wedding day. It is an unrealistic hope to have an idyllic day, especially one with so much pressure attached to it. Now that the dress is gone, I keep my memories from that night. How at the last minute, I got scared to walk down the aisle alone, and my now husband walked with me. The sun setting as we said our "I do's," the dip we executed perfectly in our first dance to that Yeah Yeah Yeahs song. How our friends and family barely ate the delicious sliders, fries, chicken wing lollipops, sushi, and cake, too busy talking and laughing and dancing to that incredible live band.
I easily let go of the once pristine, now crumpled, stained dress because I didn't need an object to remember that day or why I got married. Every time we dance and sing in the kitchen together, every heartbreak we have laughed and held each other through, every time we have celebrated each other's accomplishments, all the years of building a home in each other are enough.
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Jianna Heuer is a Psychotherapist in New York City. She writes Nonfiction and Fiction. Her work has appeared in The Hooghly Review, Months To Years, The Inquisitive Eater and other literary journals. Her flash non-fiction has appeared in two books, Fast Funny Women and Fast Fierce Women. Check out more of her work here: https://linktr.ee/jiannaheuer
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