My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle (Paperback)

In an interview with Shelagh Rogers on CBC radio’s Sounds Like Canada on February 14, 2007, Lorna Crozier commented about the anthology My Wedding Dress: “This book should be part of every wedding store and should be given every bride when they come in . . . it might provide a cautionary note to some of the pink frothy bliss that surrounds them.”
Crozier, who is a well-known Canadian poet and a contributor to the anthology, said this with a laugh, but her point is well made in this outstanding anthology of 26 stories or “true life tales.” They are written by women who are mature in outlook. There are some prominent writers: Anita Rau Badami, Michelle Landsberg, Edeet Ravel, Stevie Cameron, and Kerri Sakamoto. Other writers are not professional but have benefited from the editorial savvy of Susan Whelehan and Anne Laurel Carter.
In fact, the quality of each writer’s expression is unique, which is a reflection of their sometimes shocking honesty. Most of the stories are accompanied by a black and white photograph from the contributor’s album and this adds to the intimacy of such sharing. A minor criticism: it would have been more effective to place the photos at the beginning, rather than at the end of each story, to avoid endless flipping of the pages for a look at the dress described.
My Wedding Dress focuses on the symbolism of this garment. As we learn in the introduction, which is dotted with trivia, it was Queen Victoria who started the white wedding dress “craze”. The traditional white dress is rarely the first choice for these contributors. Some even had two different dresses or outfits. For example, in “Green Silk and Black Leather: the Official Story”, Alisa Gordaneer explains in her vivacious, tongue-in-cheek style how she ended up wearing her father’s black leather jacket over a green day dress to her “surreal wedding” in the Detroit City Hall, one among 20 brides being married that day in a sweltering room. A few weeks earlier, Alisa had worn her mother’s creamy satin dress at her “real” wedding to Marc, an American, in her hometown of Victoria, B.C. The ceremony didn’t include marriage vows. The couple had been warned by the American consulate that they had to be officially married in the United States.
In “Two Suits and A Closet”, the late Rosemary Hood wrote that she wore a tweed jacket and matching skirt for her 1946 wedding to her first cousin, Duncan- fourteen years her senior-who wore his “handsome naval uniform.” After nearly two decades together, and a son and a daughter, the couple broke up.
Rosemary was in love with a woman, Kay, and they lived together for 34 years. In 2004, now in their eighties, they agreed to get a license to be married in Toronto where they lived. This time Rosemary chose to wear another suit, a cream pantsuit with red pinstripes. She concluded her piece in her matter-of-fact tone, summarising some of the rich insights found in this anthology: “Now as I gaze at the photos from both weddings, the difference in apparel and mood hits me for the first time: formal and stiff in the first wedding; relaxed and joyous in the second. It’s very true that wedding garb reveals the emotions hidden deep within the ritual.”
Romance, or the conventional teary eyes that are expected of brides is rare here, except perhaps tears of sorrow as in Jenny Manzer’s “The Wedding Promise”. On the day she was married, Jenny was mourning the loss of her mother, who had died of cancer at sixty-six years of age, a few days before. Jenny’s mother had made her promise months earlier that she would marry her fiancé, David, whatever happened.
From her hospital bed, Jenny’s mother had helped her plan the celebration, which would take place at the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario. Seeing how much joy her mother derived from using her diminishing strength to address a hundred invitations, Jenny couldn’t think of not going ahead with the wedding. In one rushed hour, her time short with all the necessary arrangements, Jenny had found the perfect wedding dress in a boutique, and her father had taken photos to show her mother in the hospital.
These stories might be challenging to read since the wedding dresses can stir memories that are ambivalent, not always joyful. But sometimes there is happiness. In “No Shoes Required”, Ami Mckay, author of the recently published novel The Birth House, writes how each time she wears her hand-dyed green embroidered dress bought in A Star of India boutique, the scent of incense and curry wafts from it, and she is transported back to the red cliffs that overlook the Bay of Fundy, where she stood barefoot to wed “an amazing man who knew the poetry of my heart.”
My Wedding Dress is an important addition to women’s literature, a powerful and stimulating anthology that reflects the temper of our times in which women are freed from the “pink froth” of superficiality that is found in wedding magazines, to reveal in their own brilliant words, the bittersweet mélange that is the life-altering event of a marriage.
Anne Cimon (Books in Canada)

ADVANCE PRAISE

"The concept of women writing about their wedding dresses is enchanting, and so is this book. I sat right down and read it cover to cover. Then I had an urgent desire to write about my wedding dress. A gray flannel suit, since you asked. Wartime."
–June Callwood

"A wedding dress is a perfect icon for an anthology for it shows us that the women's movement can come and go, our image of a housewife or marriage may change dramatically, but each generation frets over her wedding dress as did her mother and grandmother. It is the perfect symbol of hope. If you want to cut through the latest ideology and get to the heart of what beats under the tulle read this great book. I swear if I landed here from another planet nothing would tell me more about the female psyche or the role that marriage plays in their psyche than reading My Wedding Dress."
–Catherine Gildiner

"Speaking as someone who got married in a purple suit, and then reluctantly, I can only say that the editors of this wonderful collection got it right. Their essayists have done a Martin Luther and nailed their white, beaded, silk-draped souls to the church door. Wedding dresses are the embodiment of purest happiness and deepest trauma. Some of the garments are so soaked in irony it’s a wonder the poor woman is able to stand upright. I read each story sometimes laughing and sometimes utterly aghast. A toast to the editors and their tribe of brides."
–Heather Mallick

“My Wedding Dress is not just a book for brides. It is a thoughtful meditation on every aspect of the marriage ritual — tears, taffeta and all.”
–Leah McLaren