Well, I "get" glassybaby now.

I'm an idiot and I've felt stupid for days.

Your wedding is one of the only times in life where we as a society have deemed it appropriate to shout from the rooftops, “BUY ME THIS PLATE. AND SHIP IT TO MY HOUSE WHILE YOU’RE AT IT!!” and personally, I think that’s really beautiful. It’s sort of a return to the Christmas wishlist for Santa.

Of course we received a few “off-registry” gifts, and while generally I don’t advise people do that, I think in some ways it’s important as the bride or groom to receive at least a few random things in the mail or on your wedding day. It’s a necessary dash of the unexpected to bring you back down to Earth. These gifts can range from someone knowing you so well that they spotted the perfect present months in advance and saved it for your special day, to someone knowing you not well at all and giving you something so deeply random that it makes you and your partner giggle. Both of these gifts are vital and it wouldn’t be a wedding without them.

There is, however, a third type of gift. One that is rare for me, and that is a gift I don’t understand the gravity of right away. I consider myself someone who is pretty tapped in to home decor and trending brands, but of course, it’s impossible to know everything. When we came home from our honeymoon and opened up the few physical presents brought to our actual wedding, there was one that stood out as a bit unusual to me: a votive candle holder with a pack of tea lights and a matchbook. Now it’s important to note that I am a candle fiend, so this was in no way a gift that was going to go to waste, it just surprised me. I promptly opened it up, placed a tealight inside and lit it on our coffee table. I loved it!

A few weeks later my mom came to visit and while sitting on our couch, lasered in on the candle I had lit.

“Is that a glassybaby?!” she said.

I was slightly taken aback. It in fact was a glassybaby, a name I sort of bristled at when I read it on the box. I remember wondering if it was some sort of post-wedding baby juju conception thing (it’s not).

“Careful, you might become obsessed!” she said. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I pressed her for more information, but she didn’t know much except a few girlfriends of hers “love the glow” and collect them.

A week or so ago, I was scrolling mindlessly on TikTok when I saw someone’s backyard dinner table set up and gasped at the candles she had strewn down the center. I recognized their shape instantly: glassybaby. I hadn’t thought about glassybaby since that initial conversation with my mom, despite lighting my little votive almost every night because, she was right, I love the comforting glow it gives off. I ran to the glassybaby website and started to poke around. Maybe I would start a collection after all!

I do believe you get a sort of free pass during your wedding season where you can be a little bit of an idiot because so much is happening all at once and it can be overwhelming. I like to think I sent everyone a thank you note, responded to every text, though I’m sure I didn’t and I’ve had to make peace with that. But friends, I have to tell you, when I saw this I felt like the biggest fool of all time.

Not only was this gift handmade in Seattle, where my husband grew up, but it came from one of his late mother’s closest friends. Michael’s mom, Joanie, was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer when my husband was five years old. She did what everyone said was impossible and pushed through for another twenty-four years. She passed away in 2019. Her absence was felt so many times throughout our wedding season, but we knew she was with us partying in spirit.

Now if you watched the video and just read that, you might be tearing up. Well just imagine how I feel. I am mortified!! This was perhaps the most thoughtful, emotional gift we could have received and I didn’t even get it!! I probably sent a flippant thank you note not understanding the gravity of the situation at all! I’m an ignorant bridezilla.

To make matters worse, each glassybaby comes with a little poem and intention. Cringing, I looked at the bottom of my glassybaby and saw it was called “for keeps”. I typed it into Google and braced myself:

some people play to win,
some play for fun.
some people live to love their friends;
they play for keeps until the end.

Full blown sucker punch to the gut. Not only does that apply beautifully to a marriage, but more importantly, to the friendship that Michael’s mother and our gift-giver had.

I honestly had to lie down.

The great Lorelai Gilmore once said, “I hate when I’m an idiot and I don’t know it. I like to be aware of my idiocy, to really revel in it, take pictures. I feel we missed a prime Christmas card opportunity.” Consider this me reveling.

When I was done feeling stupid, I did what I had originally intended to do which was shop for candles. Turns out, glassybaby is also pretty pricybaby. All good, I don’t deserve another one at this time anyway. I made a mental note of how good the new Under the Sea collection would look in someone’s coastal home, then briefly thought about how a bunch of bright colors would look really festive on a birthday dinner table, like confetti, then I closed my computer.

I’m sharing this with you, dear reader, so if you are ever lucky enough to be gifted a glassybaby, you won’t make the same mistake I did. You can thank your gift-giver properly and cherish your handmade, glowing “votive with a motive”.

As an added level of irony to all this, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is my last newsletter of October and while I like to focus on parties and celebrations and happy things, my glassybaby saga feels like one we can laugh at, cry at, and use as a reminder to take our health into our own hands. Schedule that gyno visit! Get that mammogram! At my most recent Galactic Girl’s night where we all made a big bucket list for the season, every single one of us had “schedule doctor’s appointment” on our to-do list. We tend to put these things off. Until last year, I hadn’t gotten a physical in over a decade. That’s pathetic! Yes it can feel overwhelming and scary, but you will feel so much better once you take action.

Today, I’m thinking of Michael’s mom, I’m thinking of my Aunt Nancy, and the thousands of other women affected by breast cancer every day. I’m also thinking of their friends, the people in their lives who play “for keeps”. Now that I know the real, deeper meaning of my precious glassybaby, I will think of them every night when I light my little tealight too.

So the moral of this story?

It’s okay to go off-registry sometimes.

Just be prepared to wait two years or so for the bride to get a clue.

And yeah. I will be starting a collection. Stay tuned.