Escape From Bridezillia. Jacqueline deMontravel
pact that I would not become one of those “Wedding Girls.” Turn into the dreaded “Bridezilla.” The bride that floated past the sundial movements of flowered heads toward a groom who successfully fulfilled his given task by showing up.
I wouldn’t be that girl that bought all of the bridal magazines minutes after the proposal. (Though I did buy a few, seven actually, this morning. Just a day after Henry proposed and that was only because it was a Monday, newsstand day, so naturally I just had to pick them up. Quite standard really—precisely the same thing as buying a Fodor book before a trip. Though I’ve never been one for travel books, as that’s too touristy.)
I’d never turn into the Bridezilla that plunged her freshly ringed finger into her bag for her mobile, speed-dialing all of her friends and family, sharing the news while her future husband drummed his utensils on the linen-clothed table. (I didn’t have my cell and the table was Formica.)
I wouldn’t obsess over the date. (Mentally set for the weekend after Labor Day, as I have been tracking the weather patterns for the weekend after Labor Day for the past six years and every Saturday has been positively perfect. There was one rainy day, but it was just for a few twilight hours where the drops fell from the most glorious lavender sky feathered with brushes of rose. And why had I been tracking weather patterns for the past six years for this particular weekend? Perhaps we should consider the peculiar people who went to such extremes as installing computer chips in the back of a bird’s neck.)
I wouldn’t obsess in searching for distinctive party favors and bubbles in sterling containers with a baby blue toile ribbon. And I absolutely would not become completely manic over my dress. My cousin Anne Briggs-Whitten had that covered, since we were related and I had insider intelligence for her penchant for matching polyester Izod outfits and how she never swam in the deep end with excuses of delicate eardrums. Anne married for professional reasons, and this was her area.
In some ways, I could look to her services as a comparable exchange for my introducing her to Jason, her husband most likely chosen for his high earning factor by working in the financial sector. The added bonus, to Anne’s delighted discovery, was the hidden fortune generated from a wallpaper design Jason had created when fulfilling his service in his father’s home distribution company.
The wallpaper pattern, a pale blue ticking stripe bordered with a beaded edging like sugar dollops on a wedding cake, used to add flair to antiseptic rooms seen in hospital corridors and the reception nook of a nationwide tax office. Each order of his paper earned him the kind of royalties more associated with failed musicians who write pull-the-trigger tunes played when a baseball player hits a home run.
They met through me, though I would never do something as irresponsible as intentionally match my cousin with another human, especially someone as warm and good-natured as Jason—destined to be the kind of man who calls boys who aren’t related to him “son.” Introduced at one of New York’s benefits that bring out all the professional husband hunters, their courtship progressed into marriage with the easy process of buying presents with computerized shopping carts.
She now lavishes expertly, a self-described sybarite. (Anne practices new words like a boy with a new golf club.) I’ve seen her go through caviar like sandwich spread. She puts together Botox parties with friends like it’s a lunch at Pastis. Her most recent addition to this sybaritic lifestyle being the Palm Beach home, so massive you have to drop crackers to find your way around. And though they’ve yet to even spend a night there, HG already shot their gardens with a year exclusive to feature their pond brimming with human-sized lily pads that guide you over exotic fish that swim to the water’s surface at the brush of your hand and suck on your finger like a baby’s lips on a pacifier.
Anne had already made appointments for Vera Wang, Badgley & Mischka and Valentino—and Bergdorf’s, of course. Had to remember to call Anne and make sure that we had an appointment at Bergdorf’s, as they carried the most beautiful Carolina Herrera georgette silk, drop waisted, cap-sleeved gown that I found while glancing at one of my bridal magazines.
The location was the easy part—to be held at my childhood summer home in Bridgehampton.
“Bridgehampton is out,” barked my mother, sticking out her cheek to interrupt me from the mental lists I had been composing while waiting in her kitchen.
Did she just say that Bridgehampton was out? Okay. I am not one of those Wedding Girls, I said like a mantra.
“What the hell do you mean Bridgehampton is out? It’s not the Plaza for God’s sake.”
“Oh yes. The Plaza. I have a date secured for the second Saturday in November, which makes perfect sense. Seven months to plan a wedding is purely preposterous. And I do think it is far more elegant to have an autumn city wedding.”
Why doesn’t she just rent a supermodel daughter and have her perform the wedding to her specifications, as she had essentially been autopiloting her parenting of me for the past thirty years.
Mother took the seat next to mine and reached for a magazine from her stack of bridal publications and books. Flipping through the magazines with that these-pages-are-so-privileged-to-be-graced-by-her-touch manner of hers, Mom started in, “I’m afraid that the house will still be rented through the end of October.”
My family—the all-American 2.4-kid kind with a father, mother, and brother who happened to be more than twenty years younger than me—had just returned to the city after spending a year in Prague, where my father had expanded his company. They kept their East Eighty-fourth Street townhouse and rented out the Bridgehampton home, which had been of no inconvenience to me since I had to spend most of last summer in L.A. working on a film Henry and I created based on our cartoon alter egos.
Henry is a cartoonist and I am an illustrator. Or, more precisely, was an illustrator. After a year working in Hollywood, I had taken an early retirement from my drawing career to focus strictly on my painting. I am more about my art than the art of furthering my career through shallow measures, now allowing for Henry—the now provider, which I think I will enjoy immensely—to maintain this high earning necessity to keep our family robust. He also works the Hollywood hustle brilliantly, his I-won’t-drop-to-their-level unintentional game plan playing to his advantage. I will now be much happier as a result, my happiness being the contribution to our family.
I peered at my mother, amazed by how beautiful she could remain despite her persnickety demeanor. She was the kind of woman that would look natural sipping in smoke from a sterling cigarette holder. (Though she quit smoking in ’86 for fear of yellowing her teeth.)
Her classic sense of style and devotion to exercises that come with a spiritual philosophy like it’s a gift bag after a great party have prevented her from having a consultation with a surgeon who makes line drawings on your face. She had the refined bone structure of a doe without that stretched like Silly Putty skin, which had always amazed me because I didn’t know if I was the little kid calling the emperor on his new, nonexistent clothes, as these women really do look like a Batman villain.
Catching something of interest to her in one of the bridal magazines, she reached for a pair of heavy rimmed circular glasses that looked like two black condoms secured with a curved piece of wire. With her crisp cotton shirt, cashmere cardigan, and gray flannel pants, she was either dressing for a Harry Potter party or recently took fashion inspiration from FDR.
“Apparently your father stands to make a substantial return just by extending the rental for the month of September. And there’s another caveat you should know. The house is on the market.”
She has got to be kidding me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“No love, I’m afraid I’m not. We don’t use the house anymore, now that we spend summers in Europe.”
She says this like she’s fired her longtime florist because they stopped using frosted vases.
“Don’t look so expired.”
“This is beyond tragic. I’m devastated. What a bad day. Michael Jackson at his sentencing bad day.”