Bridal fantasies

Even when Daniel and I decided to get married, I was sure that he would be turned off by the sentimentality of a conventional wedding. If he knew I was a woman with bridal fantasies, I figured, he would surely turn tail more quickly than if I confessed to oceans of credit card debt or a secret career as a dominatrix. I assumed we would get married at City Hall.

Turns out my assumptions were wrong. We are having a wedding. My intended, my lover, my fiancé -- he wants one. And for the first time in my life, I am allowing myself to want one too.

Still, I bought the bridal magazines with a measure of shame. They were the first I had even allowed myself to look at since Rachel's wedding 10 years ago. I pressed them secretively against my chest when I met a colleague outside the newsstand. I read them in bed and hid them when Daniel came home.

But as I browsed through the long-forbidden glossies, I began to see that bridal fantasies are not equivalent to a dream of suburban domestic life. The pages of the magazines barely mentioned the possibility of children, buying houses, apportioning chores or growing old together. They were focused on the sensual apparatus of a single event: thick paper cards with curly calligraphy; slices of cake oozing liquor-filled frosting; lush Vera Wang dresses and explosions of roses. Their goal was a "zipless fuck" of a wedding, in which every moment is smoothly orchestrated for pleasure.

And that's just it: Weddings are erotic pageants. Yes, they're about commitment, a life together, the union of two families. But they're also about dramatizing the sexual connection between two people. An erotic encounter expresses love privately, and a wedding uses fabric, flavor and music instead.

Weddings also used to be about the end of virginity, the veil and the white dress symbolizing the last moments of sexual innocence. Cascades of blooming flowers suggested a bride was ripe for defloration, a trousseau of fine undergarments accompanied her on her honeymoon and she returned from the trip a sexual being.

Now that intercourse usually occurs before marriage, weddings celebrate sex that is already happening between two people, rather than sex that is about to happen. Some might say that the erotic symbolism of the event has now lost its importance, but to me that isn't so. It just means that the drama of the pure white veil becomes playful. If the bride wants to wear it, it's because she likes the idea of that imminent defloration; it means something to her in her sexual and emotional connection to her partner.

The traditional reception has now evolved into a lavish extravaganza that reflects a couple's aesthetic passions -- and those passions are very often at the heart of an erotic connection. Bringing together everything a couple finds pleasurable theatricalizes their sexual union; it's a dramatization of what they find attractive, an opportunity to make extreme sensual indulgence a priority. The physical and the spiritual are linked, and the pleasures of the body are an inextricable part of the marriage bond.

I did eventually show my magazines to my fiancé. He chuckled a bit, shared a few wedding fantasies of his own, seduced me and encouraged me to have whatever turned me on. He looked at photographs of clustered flowers and mountainous cakes; we scouted hotel rooms for atmosphere (though we never found a heart-shaped bed); he presented a ring to me on bended knee. The bridal dreams are out of the closet now. I can carry my magazines on the street with pride.

I believe that being a feminist should mean that I'm not ashamed of my desires, but I had long felt more shame about my bridal fantasies than about any other part of my sex life. Coming to terms with tradition, and finding a way to embrace the parts of it that feel good to me, is a step toward self-definition, even if it means doing things that seem rooted in an outdated set of values and conventions. Having a wedding, I'm not only giving myself a chance to make my sensual and sexual fantasies a reality -- I'm renegotiating my idea of a liberated woman. And I expect it will feel pretty damn good -- out of the bedroom, as well as in.

Of course, the reality will not match the fantasies, exactly. I will never own a $6,000 gown and Daniel hates liquor-filled cakes. But there will be black feathers on my dress, a diamond on my finger, and deep red roses in my hair. We'll eat pad thai, gingerbread and a tiered white cake. We'll get dizzy on champagne. Maybe we'll even sneak into the coatroom.

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