Reading The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters by Jeffrey Zaslow during the month of my seventh wedding anniversary was a trip down memory lane.
I didn’t even want to try on the wedding dress I wore as I walked down the aisle. My mom picked it out, which knocked it completely out of my desire-range. I tried on the other four that I had picked out in our first pass of Henri’s, and they weren’t right. I put on the dress my Mom had grabbed. And it was the one.
I have fun memories of picking out my wedding dress with my Mom. I remember teasing my husband that he would need to stop drinking at our reception a few hours before he wanted to get me out of it, as it was rather complicated. I remember seeing his face. I remember feeling like a princess.
But I was aware, even then, that our marriage was more than my wedding dress. Or even the wedding.
We didn’t have an expensive wedding. We did have a big wedding because my family is rather large. But we didn’t go into debt to host our own wedding. We had a lovely day, I promise you that. We were just aware that we wanted more than just one day. We wanted a lifetime.
A few people made jokes this year, as we celebrated our seventh anniversary, that we should beware that old “seven year itch.” I was pleased when The Magic Room let me know that the largest number of divorces now occur in the fourth year. We’re safe! Not that we’ll stop trying, working on things and through things, as the book states.
I did not appreciate the commentary and underlying judgment that those women who want a white dress, even though they already have a child, are somehow in the wrong. Considering the Munchkin was at my wedding, and I was most certainly wearing white, I felt this part of the book and the discussions about what is and is not right when it comes to marriage and family and children was just way too off base.
When it comes down to it, The Magic Room might be a great gift to hand to a woman who is just recently engaged and is looking for a dress. But, as a note, there is a love that mothers also wish for their sons, and it’s more than what’s in a dress or a wedding celebration.
