Say Yes, By Amy Zaranek — B A D B R I D E

The eldest daughter of immigrants, my grandmother, was born on the tail end of a pandemic and spent her whole life in her Midwestern hometown, minus three months in Seattle as a newlywed. At age twenty-four, she took a train from Detroit to Washington state, accompanied only by her parents, to marry my grandfather before he shipped out to map the Pacific in the Second World War. They married in chapel number twelve at Fort Lewis. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again; she knew she wanted to be his wife. She wore a suit—blue or green, the exact color lost to history, complimenting the redheaded complexion that of her nine grandchildren, only I inherited.

When my grandfather returned from the war, their wedding photo was immortalized in black and white at the top of the stairs in the house where they raised their five sons. For years, the photograph sparked whispers among daughters-in-law: was it a shotgun wedding? An outrage, especially in the conservative Catholicism of the 1940s. She was pregnant when he deployed, their son growing and stretching her body as her husband mapped farther islands, writing letters to his wife along the way. When their son was born, the timing didn’t line up; my grandma was not pregnant at their wedding. But the daughters-in-law couldn’t believe that their husbands’ mother would purposely forgo a wedding dress. I was raised shrouded in that rumor like a cloud of bridal perfume. Now, a military partner myself, I understand the urgency behind shifting timelines, how lives are put on hold or fast-forward for the defense of a nation.

Gram moved in with my parents shortly after her ninetieth birthday. Her husband was already gone for over ten years. I was in high school, still, at home, those last months of my senior year, racked with the turbulence of college prep. My only-child world turned upside down with an elderly addition. I grew up tired of family members comparing me to my grandma. The comparisons started with our hair, hers now white and mine highlighted with blonde from summers in the sun, a living memory of what she once had. Then it became our headstrong impatience, and I pushed back against it. When I discovered my love of sending postcards, I knew my family was right—Gram and I were more similar than I cared to admit.

She and I clashed microscopically multiple times a week, a Millennial at odds with the Greatest Generation. Once, when my bridesmaid dress arrived for a cousin’s wedding, my grandma told me she wouldn’t let her daughter wear a dress so short. I snapped back something about how she never had to worry about it—she only had sons.

Yet each Friday night, I got home just in time to watch Say Yes to the Dress with Gram. She sat in my dad’s La-Z-Boy recliner, commenting on her opinions on each dress. Often, I rolled my eyes, daydreaming about my wedding dress despite never having kissed a boy. I never considered that maybe she was daydreaming too: wondering what silhouette she would’ve worn (sheath dresses were popular in the 40s) if she would’ve chosen satin or lace, how that wedding photo in her now-empty home would have been different if she had said yes to her dress. Now, I recognize her outspokenness as a strength. I recognize it in myself.

Gram passed away after my first year of college. My cousins came home for the funeral and cried on my shoulder, their tears dampening my red hair while my eyes stayed dry. I witnessed her decline. I knew she was ready to go.

Almost ten years later, I got engaged to a Navy man. I moved in with him, our cohabitation sparking unspoken controversy among my conservative Catholic family. When he nursed me through a surgery recovery, he spoon-fed me mac and cheese and watched Say Yes to the Dress with me. He listened as I mumbled my commentary and told him about my grandma. I told him she would have loved him.

He proposed a month before his planned deployment, as a virus swept across the Pacific from west to east like weather, manifesting its destiny as it spread across the states. Courthouse weddings became popular, and we both entertained the notion, locked down in Indiana when the military postponed his departure. We stuck to the course, though, our plans never uncertain—I know I’m going to marry him, whether in a Midwestern wedding venue or a chapel on base.

For now we’re apart, while he’s overseas. And now I’m back under my parents’ roof, a pillow wrapped in my arms standing in for the love of my life as I lie down alone each night. Its softness is no substitute for the warmth of his body or the weight of his arm around me. Yet I keep reminding myself that I’m lucky. Unlike my grandma, I don’t have to wait months for a letter from a man in combat who may have been killed before its arrival. I can pick up my iPhone, a luxury she never had, and tap out a message full of heart emojis, delivered instantly to the desert, 8600 miles away. Each night, we can FaceTime to close the distance.

After months of lockdown, ready for wedding plans with nothing in stone until the Navy’s next orders, I gathered my mother and maid of honor and tried on wedding dresses. I tried all silhouettes, all materials, dresses they chose for me, and the ones I chose for myself. After four appointments, I found it: ivory A-line with an illusion neck and sequined Chantilly lace. I never wanted to take it off. My grandma may have had words about the open back and low line of buttons, but she would have loved the scalloped train, the way it shimmered when I moved.

My face mask hid my joy when I said yes.