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RELATIONSHIPS LUCIE SUE FORGETS MARRIAGE

During two years of dating, we had agreed on everything. So why, as my wedding day loomed, had I pulled the plug?
By Lucie Nelka |

One thing is for certain. I wouldn’t be in Dallas right now had The Event proceeded as planned. My June could have been spent in any number of spots-the South Pacific, Paris, the Orient, Bossier City. The point is, any way you look at it, I’d be gone.

I guess I’ll never know where we (meaning me and the would-be little Mr. ) might have traveled had we embarked on our month-long honeymoon. It’s just that we didn’t get that far. Granted, we had thumbed through some travel brochures I picked up at The Great Southwest Bridal Expo, It was a month or so after he had given me the engagement ring when we decided to pull out those glossy pamphlets and make notes on the places we liked the best. We started our search in the “tropical islands” pile. And it was here, amidst our honeymoon library, that I noticed the first sign of trouble. I viewed it as an omen when the one I loved offered the polite comment that he had yet to see any pictures of the place he thought he’d take me. I assumed he meant that we should proceed to the second stack on our agenda, the pile labeled “Europe and Beyond. ” When he shook his head and said, “I thought you always knew I wanted to go to the Amish country and visit my folks, ” I began to sense that we were drifting in different directions.

Believe me, I have nothing against women who wear black bonnets or men who work at home, raising whatever it is that Amish families eat. It’s just that up until this very discussion I thought that I could peg my intended’s every move. We had never missed a beat during two and a half years of dating. So why now, on the brink of my bridal bliss, did it seem that we were worlds apart? Where was that same wavelength when we needed it the most?

I know I’m not the first to have been startled by the discovery that impending marriage changes a relationship. For the lucky, those changes are weathered with ease. I knew plenty of twosomes who were able to map out their futures together from the same kitchen table, who were quite capable of making adjustments in their lives to make room for the oneness required in marriage. I was determined that we would be such a team, so I suggested that for the time being we table the trip discussion. At least he wasn’t planning to surprise me with a month’s worth of missionary work in Mongolia.

After deciding on the wheres and the whens of the wedding, we spent a solid month canvassing the city in search of the perfect place to hold our reception. I categorized the hotels into groups determined by location-North Dallas, LBJ Freeway, HEB, Don’t laugh. Everything I touched instantly became alphabetized, and I invented an elaborate filing system containing color-coded files labeled with such handy headings as “Bridesmaid’s undergarments, ” the perfect place for the $50 worth of pantyhose I had won in an Expo raffle. Everything was pigeonholed into the grand system. On one of our good days, thanks to my system, we managed to tackle all the downtown hotels as well as those on Central.

The twenty-six hotels we visited vied in varying degrees for our business. One offered to throw in a piano player, two dozen miniature chicken drumettes, and something reverently referred to as the International Cheese Mirror (from what I could tell, this translated into cheddar cheese and Triskets displayed a la mirror) if we would sign the contract on the spot. We opted to walk away from that deal after witnessing another reception take place there. The piano player, dressed all in yellow, knew only Captain and Tennille tunes. Worse, upon examining the food table, I unearthed a crack in the International Mirror.

Without much discussion, we settled on a place that agreed to hold the room without a deposit. Miraculously, our hotel hunt came to a close with only one minor red flag waved along the way. 1 must admit that my fiancé had intended to hold out for a hotel located near the Coit-LBJ corridor. I firmly stated that I was not about to have our reception in a place known for hosting those starving artists’ shows seen advertised late at night on Channel 39, and to his credit, he eventually backed down. But I wondered: had it not alarmed him in the least that this same place had also been commandeered by Trekkie conventioneers when we had paid our call? I couldn’t help but wonder if he had hoped to finagle a deal to have one of those “sad cat” paintings or maybe a stuffed Spock thrown into the reception package.

The minute I started trying on wedding gowns, though, I was able to forget these new kinks in our relationship. I slipped on outfits in ivory and white, with beads and bows, some expensive, others reduced for quick sale. For months I spent every Saturday afternoon combing through the racks at the bridal shops in pursuit of the gown made just for me. Bridal shop sales clerks had told me all along that the right wedding gown catapults a girl into womanhood, and that sounded pretty magical to me. In gown after gown, I stood eagerly, waiting for it to happen. The dress with the lilies of the valley dangling from each capped sleeve almost did it. So did the one with the huge satin bow sitting on the waistline. But it wasn’t until I slipped on the gown with the thousands of tiny pearls sewn on its bodice that I cried. I stared at myself poised in that beautiful pattern of white and thought about the new woman I was destined to become.

Standing in front of the mirror that afternoon, I didn’t suspect that it might be years before I would whirl around the dance floor with a beaming husband by my side. Looking back, I see that the conflicts over what each of us wanted this wedding to be like were increasing as surely as the months inched us nearer to it. And, although all our married friends tried to comfort us, assuring us that butting heads was all part of the process, we knew our troubles ran deeper. In the glow of engagement and the fun of the planning, we had hurried past the important topics like children, finances, religion, career. We knew we couldn’t gloss over such big questions, merely hoping we stood on the same side. We needed more time to figure each other out.

Three days after Christmas and exactly five months away from our wedding, we sat together in front of the Christmas tree, watching as its white lights twinkled on the ceiling. We sensed it was the right moment. I wiggled the ring from my finger, placed it in his hand, and we put our heads together and cried.

Our mutual mutiny has been a tough choice for us to live with. The hard part’s not in notifying the caterer, the hotel, the church (although I still can’t face the fact that someday, in some store, I’ll see that wedding gown again). The real pain is in giving up the dream-the dream of an incredible wedding day, the dream of spending our lives together side by side, the dream of sitting on some breezy porch with grandbabies on our knees. And it’s sad because our dream lingered long, looking for some new breath of life.

At first, I believed it was temporary. Surely one evening he’d come calling with that familiar black velvet ring box tucked inside his coat pocket. I imagined that he wanted to outdo his first attempt at asking for my hand by grandly upstaging it with a second go-round. I even made sure our birth certificates were on hand should we decide just to run off one weekend.

But a few months ago, I finally packed up all the engagement memories in a box that now sits on the top shelf of my closet. It was time to store the dream in safekeeping for another time, another May.

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