No Dress

Eve Marx

Word Count 254

I didn't have a wedding. We were married by a Justice of the Peace, in her chambers, in the courthouse in West Haven, CT. I hadn't planned on getting married, but it was happening anyway. I'd just had a baby not even two weeks earlier and he was our only guest. My husband chose the date for our wedding without even consulting me as he pored through his Filofax. For our date at the courthouse, I wore the same white cotton maternity dress I'd been wearing almost daily for weeks. It was the only thing that fit and I was in no mood to hunt for a dress. I don't remember at all what my husband wore; I'm guessing khaki pants and a button-down shirt. I do remember the judge wore "mom" jeans and a polo shirt and also dorky white sneakers. Her clerk, who was a woman in her 70's, kindly held the baby while we said our vows. For a few years after I occasionally felt bitter, I didn't have a wedding or get to wear a wedding gown, but then I'd remember how much I hate being the center of attention and spending a lot of money on a dress I'd wear once didn't sit well with me at all. This month, in September, we'll be married 34 years. There are no pictures of that half hour at the courthouse, which I think is just as well. Who wants to be remembered forever in a maternity dress? Not me.

Eve is a journalist and author currently scraping out a tiny living crafting police reports for newspapers in New York and Oregon. She is the author of What’s Your Sexual IQ?, The Goddess Orgasm, 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex and other titles bearing some relation to her stint editing Penthouse Forum and other ribald publications.