The panicky feeling of forever-ness: "Michael leaves his socks on the floor when he takes off his shoes after work. This used to be fine. But now a sock on the floor isn't just a sock on the floor. It's a sock on the floor for the rest of my life." (p. 50)

The second-guessing: "You go through sudden periods where you change your mind; you think, No, not him." (p. 115)

Happiness 2 days before the wedding: "I walked down Powell Street, grinning like a fool. I can't seem to stop. The fear has been ebbing the last few days and now it's almost completely gone. So, the ebullience comes back, two days before your wedding. The boomerang effect. Something else no one tells you about. They should parachute this information into the major cities." (p. 205)

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Writer Rachael Combe honestly and smartly explores her evolution from an independent single woman - "a single girl in an age of single-girl power" - to a bride-to-be who, she admits, "floats through every day on a cloud of white tulle." As a bride, Combe writes, "I've never been happier, and that makes me sad. Was I lying to myself all those single years? Am I betraying myself now? Or am I just growing up and moving on?"

Continues Combe: "All the moments of alienation from your friends, family, fiance, and self are integral to that experience. 'You go through the drama and the angst about the registry, the dress, but it's really is never about the wedding details[,' says Allison Moir-Smith of Emotionally Engaged. '] It's about the psychological process of leaving your old life and beginning this new life.'"

"It's a time of connecting to yourself in ways that you couldn't if you just chose to cohabitate for the rest of your life, because you have to engage with all these problems of culture and history." Grappling with the wedding, [Moir-Smith] points out, you are also forced to confront how you will maintain or reshape traditional roles in your marriage.

Read the full ELLE article »

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