Fools "Ruch" In

Never marry a man who has an extreme aversion to ruching. Actually, stay away from any man who has strong opinions about your attire, particularly when he feels compelled to voice the negative ones. That's the message I want to deliver to my daughters.

After a bit of a hiatus, I watched an episode of Say Yes to the Dress yesterday, and I was horrified. A petite young woman, stylish with a mannequin-esque figure, appeared with her mom to pick out her wedding dress. She was hoping her fiance would make it to the shop to help with (actually -- and frighteningly -- dictate) the decision, but she had not yet heard from him.

What's up with that -- having the guy take part in the dress selection process? The feminist in me -- which is a "one from column A, one from column B" kind -- finds the whole white flowing dress concept a bit antiquated, since the likelihood of a virgin walking down the aisle these days is about as great as the likelihood of my divorce being finalized before I die. Of old age. But the part of me that is able to dismiss the feminist principles when something more important comes up -- like the prospect of looking like a fairy tale princess for one day of your life -- wholeheartedly believes that a groom's first glimpse of his bride in her dress should occur when he sees her walking toward him down the aisle; not a moment before. And, if he doesn't at least pretend to think she is nothing less than a vision, that bride would be well-advised to turn tail and proceed to the nearest fire house to find a worthy hunk with whom to spend what would have been her wedding night.

But back to Kleinfeld's bridal shop. The fiance blows in and as cute and svelte and chic as the bride-to-be is, her betrothed is actually prettier than she. Red flag number one; who needs that? She seems less excited to see him than nervous about what he will think about the three dresses she has fallen in love with in his absence. Frankly, I despised the one that was her favorite, was neutral about another, and thought the third was absolutely divine, but my vote was with whichever one made this bride look in the mirror and beam like nobody's business.

So anyway, the fiance -- we'll just call him, for lack of a better name, shithead -- sits down, looking peeved that his very important day has been interrupted by this nonsense, and awaits the fashion show. His bride appears in dress number one -- her favorite -- and in a half of a nanosecond, shithead pretty much dismisses it as ridiculous. Both the bride and her mom maintain their smiles as they accept his verdict without comment, and off she goes to put on option number two for the one man firing squad.

It was the one with the ruching, the one I thought made her look divine. I think it actually would have been her favorite had she not already been acutely aware of her fiance's extreme aversion to ruching. WTF??? When would that topic have come up? The young woman is literally trembling as she readies herself in the dressing room for what she knows will be a swift kick in the stomach. I am looking at her in that dress, thinking she looks stunning, but, more importantly, I can see the look in her eyes. The look that tells me (and anyone else with minimal powers of observation) that this is her dream dress.

Ready, aim, fire! Shithead clearly sees the look in her eyes as well -- I could tell because he kind of shakes his head in an obligatory apology before taking a full two nanoseconds to deflate his beloved's already shaky spirit. "I'm sorry," he said. "You know I just hate ruching." Is this an issue that goes back to his mother somehow? Maybe there was ruching in her nursing bras and his lips got caught in the elastic.

At this point, I could tell the salesperson wants to take her pointy toed shoe and ram it right up shithead's ass, and I'm screaming at the television screen, trying to scratch his pretty little eyes out. But mom and daughter have the most uncanny ability to keep smiling while the tears are welling up so swiftly behind their eyes their heads are starting to swell and they're looking a bit like encephalitis victims, and the daughter tries her best to conceal the quiver in her voice as she quickly announces it's time to take the dress off. Done.

Now I would hate to overreact to a simple shopping trip and predict that this young woman is doomed to a marriage marked by emotional abuse, but I'm going to anyway. This young woman is doomed to a marriage marked by emotional abuse. Run for your life is what I want to tell her. And I feel like slapping mom around a little, just for good measure.

It's going to be a Jewish wedding, and I'm hoping one of the salespeople will do the proper thing, which would be to show up and before shithead gets a chance to stomp on the glass for the final "mazel tov!" and take the damn glass (or lightbulb, which will work even better) and break it right over his sanctimonious, evil little head. And of course the beautiful dress with the ruching will be in the salesperson's car, and the bride can slip into it and run off to the fire station where there are real men who have never heard of ruching and who will be so stirred by the arrival of this young maiden that they will have to turn their hoses on themselves.

Say yes to the dress, honey. Say no to the shithead.