Just google Cinderella wedding and you'd be surprised to find out how many businesses thrive just by selling fairy tale wedding items. They have everything from $1 shoe favors to a $30,000 Cinderella castle cake made with edible gold (see pictures below). Disney Weddings sell out yearly. Many women want the fairy tale wedding complete with the happily ever after life. I know you're probably wondering who these women are that still crave the magic of the "Fairy Godmother" and still hope they can fit the glass slipper. They're everyday women, the girl next door. In fact, my BFF had a beautiful castle cake at her wedding. As a matter of fact, I even looked twice at a glass castle cake topper for my own wedding cake.
Every little girl dreams of her wedding day, when she is a princess for a day in a beautiful white gown, walking on rose petals and dancing with her prince charming. We all know the tale of Cinderella, who danced at the ball with a handsome prince, then lost her slipper. The Prince later finds her by going door to door to find the beautiful girl who fit the shoe. It shows how dreams do come true. And what girl doesn't want to be rescued, saved from her perpetrators?
So why is this beautiful woman, who still smiles and sings despite being treated like trash, destroying wives and the concept of marriage? The answer can be found in the end of the story. The end gave the impression that Cinderella's suffering was over as soon as she rode away with the prince. The days of being a slave to the evil stepmother and stepsisters were no more. Worked hard all of her life, was treated unfairly by jealous, evil people and then she got her just due because the won the heart of the most coveted man in the land. And she's the one princess that all girls can relate to. We've all suffered our share of hardship. Cinderella is the epitomy of happily ever after. And we all want her ending (whether we admit it or not).
Then we fall in love with our prince (or frog), he proposes and we have our fairy tale wedding (or as close as our budget allows us). But when we get past the wedding day we aren't always anticipating the gory days ahead. After all Cinderella leaves her mice behind, rides off in the carriage, and she and the Prince live Happily Ever After......THE END! Right?
Wrong. The beginning. The beginning of another set of issues. If Cinderella knew what we know now maybe she'd have taken her mice with her for some of the days to come. The days when her and the prince aren't dancing hand in hand to music playing in their heads. The days when he has to go to work and comes home stressed and doesn't want to talk. The days when the bills are piling up and the kids need new pairs of shoes. The days when she is feeling fat and moody and her feet are too swollen to dance. Many wives and husbands go into marriages with the false hope that everything will be good and as soon as the discord rears its ugly head, many of us pack up our dreams of happily ever after and cash them in for the single life. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Doesn't sound like happily ever after to me.
We all need to leave Cinderella behind and remember that our prince isn't always going to rescue us from evil. We may have to rescue him sometimes. We may have to slave for him sometimes. There will be days where he doesn't seem like a prince at all. But the same girls that believe in the magic of fairy godmothers enough to pay $30,000 for a Cinderella cake need to believe in the magic of marriage enough to stay and fight. Fight not for happily ever after but for one moment of happy, then the fight for the next....and the next.
And when we have our own daughters we'll remake the classic book and change the last page...And they live together ever after....The Beginning.
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