My Wedding Dress

Sometimes I wonder how things pop into my mind. Why would my old wedding dress, worn once, swell up to the surface of my memory requesting a voice? I think it’s because of the war in Ukraine, because my beautiful Cinderella-like dress is somewhere in Ukraine. Sometimes I think about my wedding dress. When I see the war footage on the news I unwittingly search for it among the bloodied or mangled people or buildings, followed by rhetorical questions. Was it worn by just one person? Did it get passed on to others? Was it altered and used for two dresses? God knows, it had enough material. But mostly I wonder if it  was worn in love? I really wanted my dress to experience that dreamy euphoria of love as it hugged the wearer who was walking to her destiny with a promise of love and life. Did the couple get a chance to be happy before the war started and was my dress a part of those memories that could be so important and needed in this time of war? In difficult times sometimes only such memories sustain us. I don’t think I wore it in love. I had two chances. I failed at both.

My first time was supposed to be on July 31, 1994. It was to be the wedding of the season. A beautiful venue in Brooklyn, with a guest list of over three hundred people. The wedding gown needed to fit the occasion. My fiance was a recent immigrant from my native Chisinau. We met at the El Greco Diner in Brooklyn, in February 1993, where I was with a date and other friends. I don’t remember how he got my phone number and how he told me he liked me, but soon after I broke up with the guy I was dating. That guy was very cute, but Stan was very smitten. The other guy was also not Jewish, married with a wife in Russia, and a member of a rock band. It was a tense time at home.  My parents were nervous about the whole situation. I was told repeatedly that marriage had to be within the tribe and I repeatedly agreed. It didn’t help that my closest girlfriends were either married or engaged to their high school sweethearts. I didn’t have a highschool sweetheart because in high school I was fat and had short hair. But, things had changed since then, and now my parents hoped that some Jewish young man would approve and accept me for his wife. 

At that time, at least in the Russian community, the first date in high school often led to a chuppah, happily or unhappily. I didn’t understand the unhappy part yet, but I certainly felt the pressure to join the engaged club as soon as possible. And along came Stan. He made it easy to plan a future together because most importantly, my parents approved of him. And also, we were born three weeks apart, we went to the same school back in Chisinau, and were in the same class (I immigrated before we had the chance to meet). And, my mom knew his mom! I think they went to kindergarten together. This was destiny. I can’t say I was in love, but I was  definitely in like, and we got along well. And he didn’t yell, like my father did, nor did he belittle me, like my father did. We got engaged a few weeks after we met.

The search for the perfect wedding dress was top priority, and I found it in a bridal salon on City Avenue. I tried on the beautiful Cinderella dress and fell in love. I thought of Princess Diana on her wedding day. My dress was a bit smaller, but may have had more pearls. It was gorgeous. The dress was due to arrive from Italy by next May, with the wedding coming up two months later in July. 

The engagement was over before the dress arrived. I called off the wedding on the weekend of my bridal shower. I made over 300 people who were buying dresses and booking rooms in New York quite angry. I broke Stan’s heart into a thousand pieces. Besides a broken heart Stan was also recovering from brit mila he underwent in the beginning of May, because I strongly suggested he get one. My poor father was so embarrassed and needed to lay blame somewhere. He kept insisting that I call Stan’s parents with an explanation and an apology. Years later my father would again ask me to apologize to my husband and his parents for giving birth to only daughters.  I never issued either.

It didn’t seem to matter at all that I was the only one standing up and telling the truth. Stan was a very nice guy, but he was not a match for me. I think everyone got so caught up in the moment that no one really cared about the significance of the occasion. To me, beyond all the pomp, this was a ceremony connecting the lives of two people i in an eternal union in front of God and Community. I told Stan that I could not stand in good faith, in front of God and our loved ones and say the sheva brachot if I knew even for one iota that this was wrong. I just couldn’t start my married life with a lie. This move may not have been pretty, but it was honest and I felt a huge relief after the break up. We canceled the venue, the caterer, the band, the photographer, the flowers and whatever else needed to be canceled. In most cases we were lucky to recover the deposits. But the dress was bought and waiting to be worn, which was not to be. No Princess Diana moment for me.

My friend had agreed to keep the dress, still in its original packaging, at her parents’ house so it wouldn’t bring “bad luck” to my future potential wedding. Several months later my friend and I parted ways almost in the same manner as with Stan, but a little uglier. I think this time I was the heart broken one. Keeping the dress at her parents’ place was not an option. I went to her parents’ house on a cold January day to pick up my wedding dress. My ex-friend and her mother stiffly opened the door with a sheepish greeting. They pushed the box over the threshold, so I wouldn’t trespass. 

When I got home I opened the box. The dress was just as beautiful as I remembered it. It looked dreamy. I knew that I made the right decision, but not wearing the dress hurt. How superficial was I to be more sentimental about the dress than about the groom? That was why I canceled the wedding.  

I met my future ex-husband on a blind date in November of 1998. He was very tall and beige like his Toyota Camry. By this time my girlfriends were becoming mothers, and my mother was feeling the stigma of having an unmarried daughter. When Val appeared, he was like a breath of fresh air. He was practical and dependable, which was what my father said I needed. My parents were fed up with my vagabond life and all the romantic and cool troubadours that had nothing to offer. I must admit I was a bit tired, too. Tired enough to dismiss that we were total opposites in everything. But, at that time it was new and unknown and I completely underestimated my need for romance and spontaneity and humor. I totally bought into Val's rational and cerebral nature, believing that those qualities would make a strong marriage. 

Val fell in love fast which led to a short courtship followed by a quick engagement. We met in November, 1998 and got married next July. It was a much smaller wedding. I really wanted just the immediate family, but negotiated with my father to expand to the family circle, which ended up being about 70 people. I finally got to wear my dress. 

By the time the wedding day came around I was pregnant, but the dress still fit and I just loved it. It was a hot Sunday in July and while everything went off smoothly, I didn’t really get to feel like a princess, partly perhaps because my groom put his own wedding band on his finger by himself. We were married by an orthodox rabbi in a ceremony where only the bride becomes the property of her man with the ring placed on her index finger. The groom does not get a ring in the ceremony. I envisioned me putting the ring on his finger while we were tucked away for a few private moments after the nuptials, with a promise of love and a passionate kiss that we would remember for the rest of our lives. I could not have been more wrong.  Val already had the ring on when we walked into the room. It was like he married himself. That became the prophecy of our marriage. I walked out of that room with a very different realization than when I walked in full of romance and hope. I had been denied the most basic tradition of a wedding ceremony, of putting the ring on my groom’s finger in holy matrimony. Val didn’t understand my utter disappointment and heartbreak, and he never would. My Cincerella moment was over and it didn’t live up to the hype.

The big white box was my unwitting constant throughout the decades until February of 2020. The box was a nuisance and a reminder of a failed marriage. Whatever was happening the big white box needed consideration and proper storage. It took up valuable space in our “weird” post divorce home on Terwood Dr, in a house which was built into a mountain in 1904 with a basement that was constantly humid and wet and flooding. In the next house it was stored in a separate bedroom so it would be safe from everyone. 

I had wanted to get rid of my dress, but I didn’t want to sell it. Ideally I wanted to give it away anonymously, so that the dress will make a new memory, which its beauty so deserved.  With those plans tucked away in the back of my mind, it was January of 2020 that became my chance to give it away anonymously. By that time I was remarried to my husband David, whom I married in a very private ceremony in 2018. It was just us two and the Mayor of Newtown, PA. I did not wear my old wedding dress, but rather a white summer dress I had bought years ago. 

In January of 2020, our last weeks before the Covid shutdown, I was in my local jewelry store to get something either cleaned or sized, and while talking to the sales lady I mentioned my old wedding dress. A few weeks went by which were consumed by Covid associated politics and panic. We were supposed to be leaving on a trip to Sicily in March, so we were watching what was happening in Italy and thinking whether to go or not. It was during this time that the sales lady from the jewelry store called and asked me if I still wanted to give away my dress, which would go to Ukraine. I found that very appealing and brought the dress to the jewelry store ready for transport. I think she was quite surprised to see such a big box. She was probably expecting a dress on a hanger, but instead got this big box which we both had to put in her trunk because it didn’t fit in the backseat of her car.

I know that the dress made it to Ukraine because the sales lady called and left a message that the dress had shipped and I should stop by the store to pick up a thank you package from the recipients. I really did not want to be thanked, and I was more concerned COVID. We canceled our trip and then everything shut down. I never got a chance to stop by the store and follow up with the sales lady. By the time everything started reopening she had retired, but I think I wanted to leave some part of this story unknown. 

Ukraine is much less in the news these days, especially after October 7th, but I know that Ukraine is still fighting for its survival, and while we can afford this convenient ignorance, the old Pale of Settlement is in a different state. And when I think about all that sadness and loss, I allow myself a momentary smile in hope that my old wedding dress brought someone their dream of love and marriage.

Alina Dolitsky

2.6.24