Weddingbee Blog

I remember the first time I went to visit my Great-Aunt Ruthie. My mother explained that we were stopping in to see her favorite aunt, my great-aunt, and this sounded torturous to me. I expected a slow-moving, bespectacled old woman who would tell me how much I’d grown since I was a baby. Instead, what I got was a hot tamale with a raucous laugh and a natural talent for conversing with kids.

It was the beach in late July, okay? Ignore our shininess because I don’t know how to use Photoshop.

Ever since, and especially after my own grandmother died when I was 12, Aunt Ruthie has been my dear friend and confidant.

I go her house in Maryland when I need to breathe—when life is too much and I’m not sleeping well, she dispenses practical wisdom over a skillet of crab cakes. We stay up till the wee hours, drinking wine and talking about the hardest parts of life and laughing until we cry. Over the years, her home has become stomping grounds for Pdog too, and my Best Man Brett and dear friend Jessie, and any other ragtag souls who need a haven.

On the same night I purchased my wedding gown, she gave me her wedding pearls.

Bouquet by Saipua via MSW

“You don’t have to wear them,” she said sternly. “I hate gifts with strings attached. There are no conditions. They are just a gift. They are yours now, and you’ll do what you please with them.”

I’m going to wear them doubled over my wrist, as my something old. I know there are trendier bracelets, more en-vogue or even blog-able jewelry. But to me, the necklace represents something else that is 50+ years old: her marriage to Harvey. They meant it when they said for better or worse, and they’ve gotten both. They’re who I want to be when I grow up.

I always thought the passing of pearls was sweet, a way of bequeathing an expensive heirloom. But I tell you truly, the physical worth of this jewelry is absolutely nothing when compared to the sentimental value of these gifts. I will cherish these for my whole life, and I will say to my children, “Oh these? These belonged to Ruthie- your Great-Great-Aunt, and one of my best friends.”

Do you have any deeply sentimental tokens to carry with you on your wedding day?