Things I learned from my wedding - Part 1 - EYEBROWS

I never considered my eyebrows until after the wedding.

In our high school years, Nancy Titus and I learned a little about eyebrows from our stint at the William Adrian modeling agency.  Our instructions were: hold a pencil straight up along the inside corner of your eye and that's where your eyebrow should start.  Then hold the pencil along the side of the nose in a diagonal past the outside corner of the eye and that's where your eyebrow should end.  And only pluck underneath.  Never above.

At least that's how Mr. Adrian taught us in 1968.

Thirteen years later, a couple of days before my wedding, someone suggested that it might be "easier" on me to have my makeup done professionally.  Back then, professional makeup was not the standard fare it is for weddings nowadays.  Frankly, the idea had never crossed my mind. But it seemed sensible and smart and so I booked an appointment at a Beverly Hills department store that had a salon.  Done.

Above is a photo of the night before the wedding.  My friends Lee and Maggie spent the night with me.  I'm in a bright red "onesie" (complete with drop drawer in back) that was given to me by the members of Slaveja, the Balkan singing group I was in at the time.  Normally, when someone in the group got engaged, they would receive a piece of sexy lingerie.  But because the group members apparently perceived me as not-the-sexy-lingerie type, they thought the "onesie" was more appropriate.  (Now that I think about it, the leader of our group recently was seen on CNN and BBC wearing a red lace bra, playing a song she wrote about Iran and "boob quake."  Hmmm....   But I digress.)

I loved my wedding and reception (except for the birdseed incident which I will explain in detail in another post).  It was beautiful and fun without being overly done.  I wore my mother's dress which my grandmother had made.  We had small pearls sewn on the bodice in order to add something to make it my own.  My flowers rested on the same Bible that had been carried by my mother in her wedding, covered in the same lace as the dress.  A beaded tiara was hand-made by the parent of one of my students and was attached to the same headpiece worn by my mother.

The ceremony was at the Westwood Hills Christian Church, which was as much like a European church as we could find with the scale that we were looking for.  The church had red carpet so we went all out with loads of red poinsettias, and the bridesmaids wore red moire skirts.  I really paid attention during the ceremony and felt fully present in the moment.  The reception was at the Beverly Wilshire, with the Joe Moshay orchestra playing big band songs.  Joe had this band since 1929, and had been a studio musician as well as playing for countless Academy Governors Balls.  And to top off the day, my fellow Slaveja sisters gathered to sing "Iz dolu ide."

So a few weeks later, when my mom told me that the photo proofs had arrived, I drove down to Laguna, excited for the opportunity to re-live a wonderful day.  I sat down in the living room and eagerly began to sort through the photos.   It didn't take long before I realized that I'd made a terrible mistake.  I had paid attention to everything about my wedding but my own face.  I had asked the beautician for "natural" and instead I got "cheap hooker."  I was shiny.  My eyes were smothered in blue and gold shadow.

But the worst part was, I had someone else's eyebrows.

There were plenty of people around me before the ceremony began.  The dressing room was packed with people I loved.  Not one of them said, "Here, take this washcloth and let's start over again."  Of course there were mirrors and I should have looked in one of them.  But either I didn't look or else I saw only the part of me that wasn't physical - the happiness part.  Bad idea.

So, sitting on my parent's flowered sofa, I discovered the truth - I looked hideous and here was the "proof" (pun intended).  I cried.  I told my mom she could order me a book but I wasn't going to look at it.  When it arrived, I cried some more and told Rob I wasn't going to look at it.  From that moment, it has stayed in the box it came in, tucked deep at the bottom of the deepest darkest drawer in the deepest darkest corner of the deepest darkest room.

Rob and I were going through our storage pods last week and I found the album.  I gingerly opened up the cover and tucked inside I found a photo of the rehearsal dinner.  In that photo, I look totally like myself and how I remember myself.  And I realized that for a brief time (one week?  two?) from my wedding day until the day I opened those proofs long ago on my parents' sofa, this photo is how I saw me.  This is how I imagined I looked on my wedding day.

It took me years to find a way to think back on my wedding with anything other than anger.  Remember, my wedding truly was a joy on that day and the few days following.  But the thought of me looking like someone else at that pivotal moment in my life was more than I could bear.  The image of me that lived within that album completely consumed the image of me in real life and in my head.  The image I had of me enjoying every moment was erased. Priceless memories vanished.  The whole event reduced to this:

So, it was with great trepidation that I opened up the album again.  I'm so used to seeing it inside its protective box that I didn't have any intention of opening it when I found it in the pod.  That wound had healed, thank you, and I didn't really need to shed any more blood over it.

To my great surprise, some of it wasn't as bad as I thought.  The photographer was not our first choice, so his unsympathetic lighting managed to work with my hideous makeup to make the me in the photos look even worse.  But some of the photos are funny and sweet and I'm glad I have them.

On the other hand, there definitely was clear evidence there that a number of people I loved got a good look at my face ahead of time.  Here are my bridesmaids, my mom, and my dad, all with close up views of the wreckage.

And here I am.  Looking in a mirror.  How could I have missed seeing my own face?  Who knows.

In looking through the album, I was completely surprised that other memories of mine seemed as fuzzy as my brows.  When I remember the "Joe Moshay Orchestra" I remember a big band.  But here, it looks like there was a piano and two trumpets.  Was that it?  There must have been a drummer too.  But a four piece band?  I thought it was more like twenty or thirty.  And not only that, in my memory, each band member had his individual stand with "JM" on it.  I guess not.  (Ah, yes, I remember it well...)

So, after almost twenty-nine years of avoiding the painful truth that I hated the way I looked at my wedding, I've decided to grow up and embrace the fact that regardless of what I looked like, it was a perfect wedding.  I loved every moment of it, I ended up with a wonderful partner in life, and we were surrounded by those we loved.  So what if the only thing that wasn't perfect about it was my face?  (Oh, and the birdseed incident...)  I can live with that. I will embrace my wedding face in all its shiny absurdity and know now that I wouldn't change a thing.

I'll end here - with a few photos from the rehearsal.  This is the me I thought walked down the aisle on November 28th, 1981.  This is the me Rob must have thought he was getting hitched to.  And I guess this is the me that was concealed deep beneath my wedding face.  Time to let that girl out of the box and have her finally delight in that grand day of almost twenty-nine years ago.