My Wedding Dress: True-Life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle.

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a well-born young lady had a “coming-out” party. At such a gathering, the debutante would wear a white dress, formally meet the other adults of the area, and dance with eligible young men. Others would then consider her to be grown up, and she would be expected to marry within the year. Few of us have coming-out parties in the 21st century, but many of us do have weddings where we wear a white dress, greet the extended family, and dance until the wee hours of the morning. After the wedding, many women change their surname and take on a new status in our society.

Weddings, then, are as much about declaring one’s adult status as they are about declaring love for another human being. In My Wedding Dress, 26 women write about their weddings, or more specifically, their wedding dresses, for the wedding dress has become a potent symbol of the wedding itself. Some of the authors chose a traditional, floor-length, white dress and held all of the traditional beliefs about marriage and adulthood. Others rejected this model and all it represents by selecting a modern dress in its place, or in some cases, no dress at all. One woman’s wedding “dress,” for instance, was her dad’s black leather jacket, and another woman, a lesbian, bought a wedding dress at the Salvation Army for an art project and has held on to it as the only wedding dress she’ll ever own.

My Wedding Dress gives 26 perspectives on adulthood, love, and marriage. The essays would be a thoughtful read for any intellectual woman who is about to be, or who has recently been, a wedding dress selector herself.