You Don't Have to Wear a White Dress

The tension between accepting and rejecting tradition

In case you don’t already know, I’m engaged and currently planning a wedding. Just writing that sentence makes me uncomfortable. The entire planning process makes me uncomfortable. It has me questioning who I am, what I believe in, and what my values are. I know that sounds dramatic, but an internal battle has been raging in my head. Let me explain.

My mom is an unapologetic feminist whose roots are deep in the second wave (1960-1980s). Second wave feminists “moved beyond the early quest for political rights to fight for equality across the board, in education, the workplace, and at home” (McAfee, 2018). This movement was triggered by the publishing of Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, a renowned feminist text “credited for breaking social conventions regarding the portrayal of women” (Anand, 2018). There was a lot of emphasis on women creating their own narrative by keeping their last names, paying on dates, and having their own bank accounts and careers. This is when using the term “Ms.” instead of “Mrs.” or “Miss” became popular as it neutralizes your marital status just as “Mr.” does with men.

I grew up feeling strongly that I would never change my last name, I would have a career and never be a stay-at-home mom, would pay on all of my dates and show clear independence from the men in my life. So many aspects of a wedding defy basic feminist values: having your father walk you down the aisle to be passed off to your future husband; the white dress as a sign of purity; even the history of weddings as a ceremony to exchange property. To me many of the basic components of a wedding just feel icky.

The proposal process felt somewhat similar. When Ryan and I started discussing getting engaged, I told him he needed to wear a ring, too. For a long time I thought I didn’t even want a ring. I’m not a big jewelry person and I didn’t love the signaling of the woman wearing a symbol that she’s “taken.” During our engagement, I got down on one knee too. If we are genuinely equal partners, I wanted to play his role as well.

Once we were engaged, Ryan and I talked about not having a big, glitzy wedding. Ryan’s more introverted, and I just wasn’t sure how I felt about a wedding at all. We talked seriously about eloping or just having a wedding with our immediate family. That felt aligned with our values and desires. It didn’t end up that way. I think the reality that weddings are more for others than yourself became clear early on.

So the question was: how do I plan a wedding that I will enjoy, that aligns with my values, and that balances tradition with progression? What a task.

So that’s what I’ve been up to for the past 6 months. The internal battle raging in my head. It has been… complicated. It is important to note here that Ryan is not as much of a “fuck the system” kind of guy, which I love about him. He likes tradition, whereas I immediately swing to “throw it out.” He is more protective, slower to compromise. It’s been a good challenge for us.

My immediate instinct was to change everything about our wedding. Skip the ceremony, skip the white dress, no bridesmaids, no aisle to walk down, just games and food and quality time. I didn’t even want to innovate the traditions; I just wanted them gone. It felt easier than having to consider how I could make them fit who I am.

For example, I did not like the idea of walking down the aisle. It felt antiquated and focused way too much attention on me. I told Ryan I just wanted us to kind of pop up to the front of the room together (still not sure what my vision was, but oh well), rather than walk down the aisle. He pushed back and we compromised: we will walk down the aisle together.

I’ve really struggled with accepting that feminism can be enjoying standard wedding traditions. I don’t have to change everything to remain true to my feminist values. I love my engagement ring. I love wearing it. I never thought that would be the case, but it has caused me to reconsider that my history with second wave feminism has made me hostile to the idea that maybe I can enjoy some tradition and, in many cases, make it my own. I’m very seriously considering wearing a jumpsuit instead of a dress, another way for me to reclaim a tradition that makes me uncomfortable.

I’m having a hard time distinguishing what I would enjoy about a wedding — it’s hard to take away my preoccupation with smashing social and cultural norms. Maybe I would love walking down the aisle with my mom and dad? Maybe I would love wearing a white dress? Maybe I would love bridesmaids? But I keep getting caught up in what my projected identity, bad-ass feminist atheist liberal queen, wants versus what I, Mallory McPherson-Wehan, want.

One thing that has been tripping me up is wanting people to see me as a norm-smasher and wanting my wedding to represent that image. I want people to come to my wedding and be like “wow, this is so non-traditional and cool and innovative.” But I’m getting caught in the swing back and forth between fundamentally changing everything and just altering certain things to fit me. It feels like that compromise is never close enough to what I feel I need.

I also get stuck on the idea that wedding planning alone is just a preoccupation that women are stuck with that distracts us from all the other world-changing work we’re doing. I don’t want to spend hours contemplating table decorations or room lighting. I don’t want to only talk about wedding planning for the next year. I have other things to do! Truthfully, I know that there is nothing wrong with getting invested in your wedding and having it take over your life. If that brings you joy, go for it. That’s the feminism I crave at my core. But I linger in this liminal space where I can’t quite accept that feminism has changed to a place where norm-smashing is not the only way to embody it.

Ultimately, planning a wedding is a shit ton of compromise. If I had my way, this would be a dry wedding with trivia, a panel discussion, and forced breakout groups. If I had my way, we probably wouldn’t even have a wedding. But I’m glad we are because it is challenging me to really consider whether my deep-seated, inherited values still align with me. I think in many ways they do. We live in a society where many things do need to be questioned, but I think it is also ok to accept the answer, even embrace it. Feminism looks different for everyone. Rationally, I know that.

I’m sure this internal battle is not even close to waning. It feels like each day I learn about a new wedding norm that I instinctively want to smash. The other day I found out that it is traditional for the woman to stand on the left and the man on the right. My immediate reaction was to have us switch sides (or, a better idea: have us sit in throne-like chairs and preside over the audience). The point is that I have 9 months until my wedding, and that is so much time to spiral about norms. Don’t expect this to be the last newsletter on it. I still learn new things about myself every single day, and that’s exciting and scary and feels a bit like shattering constantly, especially when you feel so sure about who you are.

I could not be more excited to spend my life with Ryan. I feel so sure about that. But planning a wedding does feel like a hurdle that I did not expect to bring up so many complicated feelings. I hear all of my friends say how relieved they are when their wedding is over; I think I’ll feel that way, too. But I’m also excited to get married at 10,000 ft elevation on a mountain in the Sierra. You win some (;