Brides and Genteel De-Cake

I’m not a fan of wedding clothes, or, well, elaborate weddings, as I’ve written here in the past.

(I got married quietly in a fitted black Willi Smith tuxedo jacket worn as a dress.) There was never any paging through bridal magazines, no imaginings of a white, frothy day.

Truth be told, wedding visuals are a tad too “perfect” for me, because I like a genteel-y decaying edge.

Perhaps I’m a postmodern Miss Havisham, but I’m drawn to tattered lace, peeling white paint on romantic shutters, and three-day-old cake, preferably with the frosting flowers starting to melt down the sides.

But don’t say “shabby chic,” because that’s too commercial; indeed, too designed.

Genteel decay is, to my mind, the savvier cousin to genteel poverty: there’s no implication of a ruptured cash flow, there’s instead the sense of preservation—of lovingly wearing or using something time and again. (And only the gâteau has an expiration date.)

So when I saw "Ryman's Brides" by Marlene Dumas, a South African painter, in W magazine, I was intrigued, then smitten. I like its moody lack of clarity, its haunting bridal features, and its splotchy icing-sugar dresses.

Anyone for day-after cake?