Modern Bride

by Debra Marshall

Like many girls, I became a hopeless romantic at the age of twelve or thirteen. I could spend entire days imagining how I would meet my Prince Charming and the way our love would unfold. There were many different paths we might take to Happily Ever After, but I knew one thing for sure: however it happened it would be beautiful.

I conjured up love-at-first-sight scenarios in equal measure with boy-next-door fantasies. Sometimes my one true love was a sensitive, brooding poet-type and other times he was a tough-but-tender blue-collar guy. Occasionally he'd be an athlete and now and then he was a lawyer or businessman. Sometimes he was tall and dark; other times he was blond and muscle-bound. But always, always, he was a romantic.

My favorite daydreams, of course, were about my wedding and the events leading up to it. I had a couple of favorite proposal scenarios. The first was a five-course dinner at a posh restaurant, complete with a luscious, chocolate dessert, flutes of sparkling champagne, and a gigantic diamond ring. Alternatively, Lover Boy would pop the question as we walked along a moonlit beach, a warm summer breeze gently blowing in my hair and lifting of the gauzy fabric of my skirt in a way that was simultaneously seductive and modest. After a suitably long engagement, we would be married in a rose garden on a bright June day. My dress would be straight out of a fairy tale, and two or three hundred of our closest friends and family members would look on as my beloved and I pledged our devotion to one another. Oh, it would be so perfect ...

I was in my mid-twenties when I met Mr. Right and after a few false starts, we got this relationship business figured out and were going along more or less swimmingly. We were both young professionals, and because we were focused more on our careers than our personal lives just then, we took it a bit slowly in the relationship department. It took us a few months to agree to exclusivity and after more than a year had passed we were still maintaining our separate apartments. All around us our friends were moving in together and a few were even getting married, but our arrangement suited us.

Then he got a job offer too good to refuse. Halfway across the country. It was a given that he would take the job, and, after a heartfelt all-night discussion, it was clear that I'd be making the move, too. Though we still hadn't made any commitment beyond exclusive dating, we knew that we wanted to be together and that we couldn't let geography separate us. I started looking for a job and an apartment in the new city.

A couple of weeks into the search, I discovered that finding new places to live and work wasn't going to be as easy as I had thought. I had a few leads on jobs, but absolutely nothing on the horizon when it came to an apartment. After a new round of intense discussion my guy and I decided that I would move in with him in the apartment his new company had secured for him. That taken care of, I started looking into finding a mover to take all my stuff cross-country. Unfortunately, I was in for another shock. There were plenty of moving companies willing to undertake the task, but for a steep, steep price.

My boyfriend was luckier in that department. Not only had his new company found an apartment for him, but they were also arranging--and, more important, paying for--his move from City A to City B. It occurred to us that we might be able to ship my things with his, since they would be going to the same place. He checked with the HR department, but no dice. They told him that they covered moving expenses only for spouses. Drat.

More discussion ensued, and each round of talks brought us to the same place: marriage. It was plain to see that this move would go much more smoothly if we were married. Finally, after another working and re-working of the figures and other logistics, my guy sat back hard and shoved his hand through his hair in the classic picture of frustration. "Screw it, then ... that's what we'll do."

"That" being getting married. Not exactly the proposal I had spent my adolescent years imagining. And my, "I guess so," was not the joyful, tearful "Yes!" I had imagined would be my acceptance.

Our wedding, two days later, wasn't quite of my dreams, either. The whole affair took less than five minutes in the judge's chambers at our local courthouse. Not only did we lack an audience of two or three hundred, but we had to pull in a clerk and a secretary from the hallway to act as our witnesses. And the ring? Don't ask.

You know what, though? Mr. Right and I just celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. It might not have been what I had in mind, but our two-day engagement and courthouse wedding worked out just fine for us. Better than fine, actually, and to have gotten this man and this marriage in return, I don't even mind giving up the fairy-tale fantasies. And anyway, aren't moonlit proposals a bit passé?

The Author

Debra Marshall fills her days with depositions and her nights with anything but depositions.