Short but Special
On my anniversary, and an announcement
Two years ago today, I got married for the first time. We didn’t have an actual wedding, and it wasn’t like anything I imagined The Big Day to be, but it was a perfect day for us.
When I was a little girl, I was sure I would be married in my early twenties with three children by the age of 30. My mother led me to believe this was my raison d’être. I remember walking my Barbie doll down an imaginary aisle with a super cool Michael Jackson doll dressed in his 1984 Grammys outfit, all blue sparkles, gold epaulets and sunglasses, back when he was the undisputed King of Pop.
I don’t know what kind of husband I thought MJ would make to my imaginary grown-up self (what little girl didn’t want to look like Barbie?) but I knew I wanted to be dazzled and live happily ever after with my very own Prince Charming.
At that tender age of innocence, I had no idea what grown-ups got up to or how children are made, but I do remember being utterly fascinated by one sartorial detail on my Barbie doll: the garter. I didn’t wear one for my marriage ceremony two years ago—there was nothing traditional about my nuptials—but out of curiosity, I researched the origins of this tradition, and here’s what I found on brides.com:
The garter toss tradition originated in the Dark Ages when people believed that having a tatter of the bride’s dress was considered good luck. During this time, crowds of guests became so lewd that they’d often follow the couple to their marital bed, ripping at the couple's clothes as a form of “encouragement,” while hoping to grab a piece of the bridal gown. As a result, the bride and groom started tossing the bouquet and the garters that held up the bride’s stockings as a way to appease the crowd.
There are many reasons why I did not “settle down” earlier. My core group of girlfriends from boarding school were all married with children by 30, as I thought I would be. I had a lot of personal difficulties to overcome before I was ready to be a grown-up, but I did know that I never wanted to settle for anything less than the real thing.
When I turned 40 in the summer of 2020, single and alone at the height of Covid, I still believed in true love (despite once being told, “It’s all a bunch of bullshit”)—although I must admit, I did start to think that maybe it wasn’t on the cards for me.
Life has a way of surprising you when you least expect it, and a couple of days after my 40th, I reconnected with someone from my past, Danny. We started a relationship and eighteen months later, I was engaged to marry the most dazzling man I have ever known.
Getting married and planning a wedding in your 40s is far more complicated than doing it when you are young and unencumbered by baggage. For deeply upsetting and shocking reasons, our wedding celebration plans were decimated by certain individuals, so we decided to leave everyone out and elope. We wanted our special day to be about us.
It was the middle of summer 2022 and we were staying at Danny’s family home in Southampton. After obtaining our marriage license at City Hall in New York City (and deciding that was not where we wanted to get married), I contacted Southampton Town Hall and booked the ceremony there, just ten days ahead of The Big Day.
We told six people—two agreed to be our witnesses and two close friends arranged flowers. I bought my dress (a simple white beach dress from Reformation) the day before, picked up Danny’s ring from the jeweler an hour before the ceremony, drove to the Town Hall, and within a matter of minutes, a female clerk officially declared us husband and wife. We did not even say “I Do.” When asked if we took the other to be our lawfully wedded, I said: “Definitely”, and he said: “Absolutely.”
Even though we did not say traditional vows (which we still intend to do, one day) we made our promises long before we got married under a love tree in St. Augustine, Florida. We were there visiting a friend, and on the day she showed us around her romantic home city (famed for being the oldest city in the U.S.), she pointed out a palm tree growing through a live oak and told us, “That is a love tree and they say if you kiss under it, you stay together forever.”
An Announcement
On 1st September, I will be relaunching this Substack (again!) as an online monthly magazine. More details to follow.
Please like, share, or restack to help spread the word. Until then—
Stay tuned, stay cool, and see you in September.
Knowing you both - you were made for each other xxx
Beautiful story! Congratulations to both of you!! Xxx