quotations about brides
You did not marry your wife. You married your bride, who used to be your fiancée, who used to be your girlfriend, who used to be a chick.
J.D. SMITH
Life Sentence: The Guy's Survival Guide to Getting Engaged and Married
Every bride is beautiful. It's like newborn babies or puppies. They can't help it.
EMME ROLLINS
Dear Rockstar
In parts of Russia, there is a tradition of communal bathhouses where, in a ritual overseen by the local village wizard, or magician, a bride is ritually bathed. During the bathing ritual the bride is flailed with birch twigs and the sweat rubbed off her with a fish that is cooked by her future mother-in-law and eaten by her husband-to-be.
GEORGE MONGER
Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoons
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
AMERICAN PROVERB
If you're looking for information on how to be a bride, you won't have to look far. There are thousands of books, magazines, bridal shows, and websites--all offering tips and checklists to help the well-organized bride plan her wedding. And since most of these lists start with "twelve months before the wedding," many of us find ourselves way behind before we even get started.
SUSAN DEVRIES & BOBBIE WOLGEMUTH
The Most Important Year in a Woman's Life: What Every Bride Needs to Know
Moonlight, white satin, roses. A bride.
ANGELA CARTER
The Magic Toyshop
She smiled, array'd
With all the charms of sunshine, stream, and glade,
New drest and blooming as a bridal maid.
WALTER HARTE
The Amaranth
Here she comes on down the aisle
Behind her veil she wears a smile
In her hands the bright bouquet
Daddy's here to give the bride away
Best man fumbles for the band
Groom puts it on her trembling hand
Almost before the vows are through
In her calmest voice she says, "I do."
SPIN DOCTORS
"Here Comes the Bride"
It is possible to get married without becoming a bride. I know women who have accomplished this feat. I am not among them. I tried, but I am too in love with spectacle, and have too much respect for the power of theater and ceremony, to commit to a really big ritual like a wedding in a small or ironic way, one that would deny everyone their lucky charm, their temporary diva. Their star. For that is what a bride is, whether she wills it or not.
ALYSSA HARAD
Coming to My Senses: A Story of Perfume, Pleasure, and an Unlikely Bride
It seems so simple--a dress, a walk, a few repeated words. Perhaps some flowers. But beware, beware. Deep magics are at work. The old stories lie in wait. For a bride is also: a virgin, a princess (never a queen or an empress--they have armies), her father's property in tender human form, her mother's emissary, carrying the customs of her people to a foreign land, even if that land is only a few blocks away. And though this is all very old news, the bride herself is always new--a new beginning, the bearer of hope and the hoped-for bearer of children, the means through which families and countries combine wealth, settle old scores, and seal the peace.
ALYSSA HARAD
Coming to My Senses: A Story of Perfume, Pleasure, and an Unlikely Bride
She turn'd--and her mother's gaze brought back
Each hue of her childhood's faded track:
Oh, hush the song, and let her tears
Flow to the dream of her early years!
Holy and pure are the drops that fall
When the young bride goes from her father's hall;
She goes unto love yet untried and new:
She parts from love which hath still been true;
Mute be the song and the choral strain,
'Till her heart's deep well-spring is clear again!
She wept on her mother's faithful breast,
Like a babe that sobs itself to rest;
She wept--yet laid her hand awhile
In his that waited her dawning smile,
Her soul's affianced, nor cherished less
For the gush of nature's tenderness!
She lifted her graceful head at last--
The choking swell of her heart was past;
And her lovely thoughts from their cells found way
In the sudden flow of a plaintive lay.
FELICIA HEMANS
"The Bride of the Greek Isle"
At first the sheer number of "You're a bride--now what?" magazine articles and websites might feel like a warm embrace, saying, "Don't worry, someone's got all the answers--us!" But no one has all the answers. Big Bridal is an industry like anything else, and they're very convincing, tapping into deep fears and societal instincts, triggering a lot of shame and doubt. It's essential to take a step back and laugh at Big Bridal ... or be consumed whole.
JAMIE LEE
Weddiculous: An Unfiltered Guide to Being a Bride
His love makes you beautiful
So beautiful
So beautiful
You ask your looking glass
What is it?
Makes you so exquisite?
The answer to your query
Comes back, dearie
His love makes you beautiful
So beautiful
So beautiful
And woman loved is woman glorified
You'll make a beautiful
Beautiful
Beautiful
Beautiful bride
BARBRA STREISAND
"His Love Makes Me Beautiful"
Brides aren't happy--they are just triumphant.
JOHN BARRYMORE
attributed, The Portable Curmudgeon
At thirty-six, with fifteen years of feminism under my belt, having attended weddings of almost every description, I knew all this and more, and it did not help me one bit. As I navigated through fantasies of virgins in white dresses, registered for sheets for a marriage bed I'd been sleeping in for more than a decade, and tried to broker a peace between rival religions, languages, customs, and countries, I kept thinking, in a distracted, bewildered way, But I'm too old for this. I thought I'd outwitted the stories by waiting so long, as though there were an expiration date for all that ancient silliness. Yet there they were--along with everything I thought I'd abandoned or escaped when I lived long enough to forget, at least a little bit, what it was like to be fifteen.
ALYSSA HARAD
Coming to My Senses: A Story of Perfume, Pleasure, and an Unlikely Bride
Bride knoweth bride at the glance of an eye. And between them swiftly passes comfort and meaning in a language that man and widows wot not of.
O. HENRY
"Sisters of the Golden Circle"
I sit in a chair in front of a mirror, watching as I am changed into the picture of what a bride is supposed to look like. When the pros are finished I race into the bedroom, wipe off the creepy lowkey makeup, and do my own thing.
JACKIE COLLINS
Confessions of a Wild Child
A bride, before a "Good-night" could be said,
Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,
As souls from bodies steal, and are not spied.
But now she's laid; what though she be?
Yet there are more delays, for where is he?
He comes and passeth through sphere after sphere;
First her sheets, then her arms, then anywhere.
Let not this day, then, but this night be thine;
Thy day was but the eve to this, O Valentine.
JOHN DONNE
"Epithalamions; or, Marriage Songs"
The groom always smiles proudly because he's convinced he's accomplished something quite wonderful. The bride smiles because she's been able to convince him of it.
JUDITH MCNAUGHT
A Kingdom of Dreams
The wedding the ceremony and the reception is for the bride, the honeymoon is for the groom, the food is for the guest, the money is for the vendors, and the empty bank account is for the parents.
MANUEL CORAZZARI
attributed, goodreads