To Have and To Hold: A wedding Day Fragrance
What seems like an eternity ago, on a blustery day in April, I married the man to whom I am
still married. Way back in the day, after having attended my fair share of over the top, lavish
weddings, I decided that a small family affair with a few friends was the way to go-for me. As
luck would have it, one of my very good friends was an event planner so I basically turned all
wedding decisions over to her. Brilliant- a turn key wedding. No big decisions for me to make.
After some prompting from my friend, and my mother (!), I went wedding dress shopping. As
previously stated elsewhere, I am no fashionista, so wedding dress shopping was not high on
my list of priorities. After getting approval from my then employer to leave work early without
stating why, I hopped a subway to Brooklyn to go to what was deemed to be the wedding dress
emporium of every bride’s dreams. By myself. Egad! As I entered, I felt like I had fallen down a
rabbit hole of racks upon racks of white fluff. Requiring the strength of the most skilled weight
lifters, poofier and poofier mounds and pounds of white fabric were lifted from racks and hoisted
upon me to try on. As desperation began to descend on my less than euphoric self, I spotted it.
A sleek, plain silk, drop wasted number by some big name designer who clearly understood
that less is more. Which of course translates to more price-wise. But hey. I was having a small
wedding. So what difference would it make if the dress cost as much as the wedding itself?
Thrilled by the fact that in a short two hours I had put the dress question to bed, I turned my
attention to the really important question that had haunted me since I had gotten engaged. What
fragrance would I wear on the big day? This question may seem like an incidental detail to
some, but it’s not. How many times does a person wear their wedding dress? Ideally, once. But
in perpetuity, whenever you smell the fragrance you wear on your wedding day, or any special
day, you will forever be reminded of that occasion. In my case, that’s a good thing. But imagine
wearing a fragrance on your wedding day that you have loved forever…and then your prince
charming turns in to a toad. You now have an ex-favorite fragrance along with an ex-husband.
Losing the toad is one thing, but losing your favorite fragrance… Of course, that isn’t what I was
thinking about back then. Pre-nuptial euphoria precludes planning for such things.
So what exactly was I thinking ? Perfume blogs weren’t really a thing in the stone age so finding
the perfect fragrance for my perfect but small wedding required intense, in person investigation.
The ground floor of Saks, in its day, was a haven of heavenly scents foisted on any individual
running the gauntlet from the front door to the back elevators. Annoying to some, nirvana to me.
Drifting from one perfectly coiffed sales woman to the next, I listened intently as each, in what
can only be described as a loving and motherly way, gave their best pitch as to why their
fragrance should walk me down the aisle. It was a lesson in adjectives: sweet, heady,
contemporary, classic, sophisticated, unpretentious, billowy, not overpowering, seductive…yes,
yes, yes! But I couldn’t wear them all. Confused, dejected and over sprayed I decided to try
again another day.
Walking slowly towards the side exit (nearest to St Patrick’s - a good omen) I spotted a very
large bottle of Shalimar-one of my mom’s favorites. Feeling magnanimous after presenting her
with my wedding dress bill, I decided to splurge and buy her one of the beautiful baccarat
bottles with its iconic blue stopper. As I slumped toward the counter, a chic but reserved sales
woman asked if I was looking for something special. Without hesitation, in a burst of the verbal
runs, I poured out the the tale of my search for the perfect fragrance for my wedding day and
how I would have to be satisfied with buying my mother a bottle of Shalimar. Quietly, she said
that what I needed was a romantic fragrance that was at once classic and serene, but also
joyful. She nailed it. But did this really exist? Reaching for my wrist, she gave a quick spurt from
an at this point unseen bottle. The scent was soft and delicate but not overtly feminine. It
smelled at once old fashioned yet strangely contemporary, elegant and understated, and
certainly sophisticated. It was the fragrance equivalent of the sleek Herrera wedding dress I had
found on my Brooklyn sojourn. Even the bottle was captivating, with a raised glass heart motif
on a sleek, no-nonsense linear bottle with a translucent blue cap. The fragrance, the sales
woman explained, had been created in 1912 by Jacques Guerlain. It represented his favorite
time of the day, between day and night—the “bluish hour.” I had found it. L’Heure Bleue.
I have managed to save and savor my wedding day perfume all these years and on the special
occasions when I pull it out to take a sniff, a flood of wonderful memories, of family and frivolity,
of promises made and still kept and so much more fill my senses along with the scent. So while
some may think that a wedding day fragrance is an incidental detail, it is so much more. It’s a
tangible tie to a day that hopefully represents a transition of time, a joining of families, and a
future of happiness.
Notes in L’Heure Bleue:
Top Notes; Anise, Neroli, Coriander, Bergamot and Lemon; middle notes are Heliotrope,
Carnation, Violet, Cloves, Neroli, Ylang-Ylang, Bulgarian Rose, Jasmine, Orchid and Tuberose;
base notes are iris, Vanilla, Benzoin, Sandalwood, Tonka Bean,