Brides of a certain age….

She’s on the hunt for the perfect wedding dress.

She is having a Christmas wedding and this calls  for ivory velvet.  Ivory. Velvet.  Now, nobody is asking me, but I think that velvet is too heavy, even in December.  And that velvet and hot flashes are a really bad combination.  I want to tell her that the only females who look good in velvet are two year olds and the ten mature women on Earth who still wear a size 2.   I think she should take the money she plans to spend on a perfect wedding dress and blow it on a honeymoon instead.  I think she should look for something she can actually wear again…a nice, simple dress or classy suit.

But as a first time bride of 53, she wants a real, honest to goodness wedding gown of ivory velvet so I’m keeping my opinions to myself, for once.   Besides, she is my cheerful, loyal, glass-half-full friend.  The type of friend that some women spend their whole lives searching for and never find.  I was lucky to have found her my first year of college.

Now, don’t get me wrong.   I like a good wedding dance as well as the next gal, and I’m very happy for her.   She’s always been single.  She has a great career, her elderly parents, a daughter, a grand-dog, and many friends.  In a few short months, she’ll be making a vow to love, honor, and cherish another person for the rest of her life.   It’s the same promise that most of her friends  made three decades ago when we were just a bunch of clueless college girls with tiny waists and big expectations.

People who’ve been married a long time sometimes take their marriages for granted.  I know that I’m guilty of that. My marriage is just there…like air. And laundry.   I know couples who have survived the worst that life could throw at them that have stayed together and people who have left marriages that on the surface, at least, seemed happy.   I’ve lived long enough to know that nice people get divorces and ornery people stay married at least as often as ornery people get divorced and nice people stay married.   And I know people who are happily single, too.  It’s good to have choices.  It’s good to know what you need.

I think that my friend who is choosing love understands this.  Maybe brides of a certain age have their Stuff figured out.   Maybe they know best that in this often cold and scratchy Life,  sometimes velvet isn’t the question.  It’s the answer.

She’ll make a lovely bride, this warm and fuzzy friend of mine.    Okay, a sweaty bride, but a lovely one, just the same.