Linda Hirshman’s guest post over at Broadsheet yesterday, “Getting Nudged into the Chapel,” is summarized thusly by Salon: “There’s something in all of us that craves the trappings of a classic wedding — even intellectuals who rail against the institution’s traditions.” Well, color me intellectual, but I had a BLAST dressing up as a 1950s-era bride, white gloves, veil, and and all. I figured, if I’m going to be the bride, why not camp it up and play it as a role?

Weddings are theater, we figured (our guests were invited to dress in 1950s garb and many of them took us up on it) so why not have some fun. The soundtrack was mambo (and klezmer) and we pretended — sort of — that we were at a Catskills resort, you know, the ones where Latin bands like Tito Puentes’ taught the summering Jews how to dance. Since Marco and I are Latin-Jewish fusion and all.

But here’s the thing: though I went into it “playing” the bride, I utterly became one. And it was the veil that did it. I became a bride not in the retro pregnant-in-kitchen kind of way (though I must say, at 39 and undergoing fertility treatments, I certainly wouldn’t complain about the pregnant part–and regarding the kitchen, I’ll always be an active labor force participant by necessity and choice). Rather, the veil helped me become a bride in the physically-spiritually-transformed-special-and-set-apart kind of way. My groom, who donned a white linen suit in order to feel his own kind of special, was in costume too.

Sometimes a veil is just a veil. And sometimes it’s not. What about you, dear GWP readers? Did the marrieds among you don it or ditch it? I’d be interested to hear.

(Hey–Shira–someone’s gotta write about brides, feminism, and fashion for your new book. Any takers?)

NOTE: The comments didn’t transfer for some reason when we switched to WordPress. But you can find them still here.