The gist of our conversation went like this: Ann: "Did you buy your plane ticket?" Me: "Plane ticket?" Ann: "To Burlington. They're getting married at City Hall. Tomorrow." Me: "Who?" Ann: "Daddy and your mom." Me: dumbfounded silence.

My mother could at times be circumspect about her private life, and I wasn't the easiest person to reach, but the fact that she appeared to be sneaking in a marriage without notifying me came as a shock. I had been raised by her and Mannie, after all, and in their decades together I'd heard nary a peep about nuptials. Plus I was her only child. How could she have kept this from me?

Having worked myself up into a lather, I said good-bye to Ann and dialed my mother at her studio in Vermont, where she was making abstract sculpture inspired by before and after images of women who'd had plastic surgery. "Why didn't you tell me?" I shrieked, momentarily forgetting where I was (in the busy office of an entertainment magazine where I'd just been hired). "I don't know," my mother replied vaguely. "I wasn't thinking-I was trying to get everything done." "Uh-huh," I said. "Gina, it's just a civil ceremony; we didn't tell anyone. Are you upset?" Then my mother giggled, sounding uncharacteristically giddy.

"Yes, I'm upset," I said, trying to keep my voice down so my new cubicle mates wouldn't hear. My mother apologized, but I got the sense her mind was elsewhere. I felt like an indignant parent berating her child for eloping. Except the person eloping was my fifty-seven-year-old-divorced-feminist-artist-tenured-college-professor mother.

Well, I thought, at least now I can call Mannie my stepfather and not be lying. My father (who had a son from a previous marriage) moved out when I was four; my half brother went with him. A year later Mannie moved in, and never left. This turned out to be a good thing. When Mannie's first marriage ended he'd been so certain he wanted no more kids that he'd undergone a vasectomy. But from the beginning he treated me as a daughter. An architect and bon vivant, he cooked gourmet dinners and helped me with my math homework. He took us to Italy, his native country, for glorious vacations. He taught me to ski, drive stick shift, and use a computer; most importantly, he survived both my and my mother's volatile temperaments with his love for us intact.

As for marriage, this institution was viewed in our household with a kind of amused irony, as if it were a quaint fad, a convention for people caught up in the petty trappings of bourgeois life. Born to artist-political radicals who fled Europe for America during World War II, Mannie had an instinctive aversion to governmental meddling. He saw no reason to bring the law into his love life. My mother, a 1970s feminist who battled for the ERA and began the first all-women's art gallery in the United States, came to see marriage with my father (an unrepentant old-school chauvinist) as a sexist construct that was more of a burden than a privilege. With Mannie, she had independence paired with the security of being loved by someone who shared her values. For the most part they kept their assets and finances separate. They traveled frequently-together and alone; they had their own careers and many friends, some mutual, some not. They were involved in local politics. They liked to throw dinner parties and talk late into the night. As my mother once told me, when she and Mannie got together they'd started a conversation that had never really stopped. That was what made their relationship tick-not "some piece of paper."

As nicely as their unmarried status worked for them, it did cause some trickiness for me growing up. People often assumed Mannie was my father, or at the very least my stepfather. At some point I began to refer to him jokingly as my "Adult." To call him "my mother's boyfriend" seemed reductive, but I didn't want to call him "stepfather" either, since it implied a marriage that didn't exist. And he wasn't my dad-I already had one of those, every third weekend and for two weeks in the summer. Some people might have judged them, but to me, my mother and Mannie's decision not to marry seemed natural. That was who they were. And while I wished sometimes that my family were more "normal," I respected their choice.

So what was with the sudden hush-hush wedding? My mother assured me that no one was sick, no one was dying, but I felt unsatisfied. Telling only Ann, I got the next day off, bought a one-day round-trip ticket, and flew home.

As far as wedding crashing goes, my appearance went over well. When I showed up at my mother and Mannie's door a few minutes before they were to leave for City Hall-my flight had been delayed by a snowstorm-my mom screamed at the sight of me. "You came!" she yelled, jumping up and down a little. "You came!" In contrast to her blue wool dress, her face was bright red, a probable combination of excitement, anxiety and high blood pressure. After a round of hugging, the five of us-Ann, my mother's best friend, the happy couple and me-squeezed into the Saab and drove into town.

The no-nonsense civil ceremony was officiated in a gray-carpeted room on the third floor of the court house on Main Street, by a female judge friend of theirs with blond highlights. It would have been dull, were it not for my mother's hysterical weeping throughout the entire event. From the moment the judge began to recite the vows, my mother started wailing-not discreet tears that one dabs at with a hanky, but full-on waterworks. I can still hear her repeating, "For richer and for poorer, sniff-sniff, in sickness and in health-WAAAAAAAH-HAAAA."

No one else cried. I think we were slightly stunned by my mother's show of emotion. Secretly, however, I related. The truth was, at twenty-eight I'd been fantasizing about my own wedding for years. No matter how stressful things became with the boyfriend of the moment, I could always lose myself in a warm and fuzzy matrimonial daydream. The ceremony would take place on the beach where I'd spent my childhood summers; I'd wear a flowing gown and flowers in my hair. My father and Mannie would both walk me down the seashell-strewn aisle, and my mother and grandmother would weep copiously (how my wheelchair-bound grandmother would maneuver herself onto the sand was something I'd figure out later). My bridesmaids would wear pretty sundresses. Every friend I'd ever had, plus a few famous writers and musicians who magically became part of my inner circle for the occasion, would assemble in an adulatory crowd. Afterwards, as the sun set over the dunes and the sea turned purple, witty toasts and bacchanalian dancing would ensue.

The only thing missing from my flight of fancy: a groom.

But at my mother's wedding I felt strangely removed from the proceedings, as if I were the one who was missing. My mother's best friend videotaped the ceremony as Ann and I stood off to the side, Ann smiling, me zoning out. Mannie kept patting my mother on the arm. When it was over, my mother stepped back, stared at her new husband and said in a voice full of wonder, "I did it! I married you!" At that moment I felt the significance of what they'd done. It was a fleeting but powerful rush. Maybe, if you found the right groom, you could do without the grand setting and all the rest.

Now, seven years later, Mannie and my mother are still happily hitched, and I, at thirty-five, have finally become engaged. It took two long dead-end relationships, a few hundred dates, and several hundred more sobbing heart-to-hearts with friends, my mother, and my shrink, but it seems I've finally found a groom with not only a face (handsome) and a body (hot), but a beautiful soul as well. Although Russ and I come from very different backgrounds (let's just say his family would never give Fidel Castro a letter saying Mi casa e tu casa, as Mannie once did), we share the experience of having divorced parents and strong, career-minded mothers.

The morning after Russ proposed, the first thing I did was call my mother. "Are you sitting down?" I asked. "I'm engaged!" It felt surreal-I'd been waiting to say those words to her for as long as I'd been waiting to hear "Will you marry me?" from a man I love. I was expecting a scream, but instead my mother asked me to repeat myself. "Engaged," she said, almost whispering. "Wow. Engaged." I felt a pang of uncertainty. Did I sound bourgeois? "Yes, mom!" I spoke loudly to make up for her underwhelming response. "Russ and I are getting married!"

"I guess you really love him," my mother said. I repressed the urge to hang up. Russ and I had been together for a year and three months. He'd met my various parents a few times, and while my father jokingly called Russ "the best thing that ever happened to me" (meaning to him), it was hard to say what my mother thought of my fiancé.

On a rational level, I couldn't blame her reticence. Until now, all my romantic relationships had ended in tears. What mother wants to see her daughter heartsick? But this love was different. Wasn't it? When we announced our news to Russ's family over lunch in Brooklyn, their reaction struck a different tone. "OH, MY GOD!" his mother boomed as she rushed around the table to embrace us both. "OH, THAT'S WONDERFUL!" echoed his grandmother and his aunt. In turn, his brother, his uncle and his mother's boyfriend rose to kiss me and slap Russ on the back. Russ's mother wanted us to "TELL HER EVERYTHING" about our plans for when and where we'd marry and what my dress would look like-stuff we hadn't even begun to consider. It was overwhelming, and I liked it.

So began the planning of my long-dreamed-of wedding day. By now I had attended most of my friends' weddings, not to mention their kids' first and second birthday parties. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and what to avoid. No grotesquely swollen wedding budgets for me! I would do things my way-laid-back yet elegant, fun and unpretentious. I discovered that a wedding on the beach in the Hamptons, or anywhere in the Hamptons for that matter, would be prohibitively expensive and complicated. We began to look in our own neighborhood-Brooklyn-for a venue. But even when I spotted a "reasonably priced" caterer listed on the web or tracked down a reception hall that charged less than ten thousand bucks a night, the ease with which I could see our life savings dwindle boggled the mind.

As Russ and I struggled to figure out what sort of wedding we wanted and what we could actually afford, I couldn't help but think about the way my mother and Mannie did it. When I told my mom how things were going, she tried to reassure me. "It's not a competition. You don't have to spend a lot of money if you keep it small. Mannie and I didn't spend anything on the ceremony except for the marriage license." I reminded her that they'd had a big bash several months later to celebrate with their friends. But I knew the party didn't cost much-they had it at a friend's house, the hostess cooked all the food, Ann brought cupcakes and Mannie and my mother bought the wine.

"You don't have to make yourself crazy," my mother continued. "Keep it simple. It sounds corny, but the wedding is just one day. The real celebration is the rest of your lives-focus on that." How right she was, and yet I found myself resisting this wisdom. Who cares if it's just one day-it's the day I've been waiting for my whole life! I called my grandmother, who put in her two cents. "Have a little luncheon; lots of people are doing it now and it's much less pricey." I asked how she got married and was informed that she eloped with my late grandfather, first dashing to the Philadelphia court house without telling anyone and then taking off on a cruise ship for Canada. Apparently I'm flubbing a family tradition. I received a few emails from Mannie. He wrote: "Everyone in my family got married at City Hall by a justice of the peace. Have a party later, when you have the time and money. All that other stuff is advertising." My father was concerned about money in his own way-he said he couldn't pay for a wedding, and I knew he was hoping the others would pick up the slack.

I was grossed out by Bridezilla culture, but each time I talked to one of my "keep-it-cheap" relatives my reaction was increasingly, "Bring on the pouf and circumstance!" In a fit of mixed emotions, I bought the spring issue of Bride magazine. As I perused its glossily exotic pages, I was only partly turned-off by the wedding frippery; the other part of me was utterly absorbed by this siren call to fairy-tale bliss. I asked Russ what he thought-should we just go to City Hall with the dog walker as our witness? Though this option appealed to both of our practical sides, Russ wanted more, too. "If nothing else," he said, "I want our ceremony to be special; I don't want to stand in line in some grimy room downtown."

Right on! I thought. Maybe the bells and whistles were important because they represented something missing from our childhoods: tradition. Now tradition could be ours! In my case, my parents chose unconventional relationships (my father has had many girlfriends over the years and married none of them), but I didn't want one foot out the door of my marriage. A wedding ritual with trimmings underscored my hope for permanence. It was a way to trumpet the beginning of something strong and stable.

I explained this to my mother. "I get it," she said. And did she. A check for several thousand dollars came in the mail. Apparently she talked to Mannie, because he pledged the same amount. My grandmother said she would help cover what was left. Russ's mom pitched in a generous chunk as well.

Then my mother called and announced she'd bought me a dress. She braved a one-day wedding-gown sale in Vermont and scored, for $98, a white, puffy department-store sample with silk flowers and buttons sewn down the back. It sounded utterly unlike the more modern look I'd imagined for myself, but the dress from Mom was like a green light. In a flurry, Russ and I chose a park on the water for our ceremony, with views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. We booked a light-filled loft for the reception, signed on an Asian-themed caterer, a funky florist, and two talented friends to sing songs for the processional and recessional. We found Jesse, a self-anointed "Rabbinister" who practiced "humanitarian pagan spiritualism," to marry us. In honor of my Jewish heritage, which I mostly ignored until becoming a bride, Jesse would help us incorporate some Jewish-wedding elements into the ritual, such as the huppah canopy and breaking the glass. I even went shopping with one of my bridesmaids and wound up with three bow-adorned sundresses that complemented the gown my mom found. At the eleventh hour, my father stepped up and gave us five grand.

It is now less than three months until the wedding. Every once in a while I second-guess myself. Despite my conviction not to become the sort of full-time control-freak bride featured on reality television, sometimes she possesses me. I do nothing with my days, it seems, but research, plan, and think obsessively about the details of my wedding. There are epic struggles over the guest list with our mothers; my poufy gown turns out to be sun-damaged and has to be replaced; I have paroxysms of anxiety about rain. And then my ninety-one-year-old my grandmother passes away. Home from the funeral, I shove aside the bursting folder marked "wedding" and drop my head between my knees, wondering if the expense and effort are really worth it. The invitations are not yet in the mail; we haven't found a photographer; the caterer and florist and loft people have not been paid. We could still call it off.

I do what I always do when tormented by confusion: I talk to my fiancé. Only today when I ask him for the umpteenth time if we should elope, Russ-my rock, my center of calm and reason-doesn't give me an easy answer. He doesn't reassure me that everything will be fine and that I should just relax. Instead, he says, "The guest list is three quarters your family and friends." I cringe inwardly. "So if we call it off, it's not such a big deal for me. I'm perfectly happy to have a small ceremony in the park and then go out for dinner with a few people. But is that really what you want?"

I think about it. I consider our friends and relatives, ready to show up and rejoice. I see them getting jiggy on the dance floor to the music Russ and I have compiled and sung to, out of tune, in our car. I picture my three oldest friends-now wives and mothers-wearing their bridesmaid sundresses, standing by me as they always have. I envision the dramatic views of the city that will be the backdrop to our wedding vows. I see my grandmother's white embroidered tablecloth, which we're using for the wedding canopy, billowing in the wind, sheltering us. I'll be walking down the aisle with Mannie on one arm and my dad on the other, and I'll probably be bawling like my mother, who will be bawling in her chair as she watches me finally do this thing. I look at Russ, who is looking back. The answer seems clear after all.

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Gina Zucker is a writer and teacher who lives in Brooklyn. This essay was excerpted from Altared: Bridezillas, Bewilderment, Big Love, Breakups, and What Women Really Think About Contemporary Weddings.