Previously: Foreshadowing of creepy vampire babies.
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Catherine: So, Bella wakes up from another of her dumb psychic nightmares that are never explained and she’s immediately pissed at herself for having such a disturbing dream the night before her wedding. Um, okay.
Annie: If I was marrying Edward, I’d be having nightmares, too.
Catherine: Fair.
I can’t tell if Bella’s being misogynistic about married women needing to be proper and prim here because this series has scrambled my brain like so much eggs. Look, she’s enough of a misogynist that I can safely call her one at any moment using backup credit. So, she was doing that. Also, the prudish outrage at having a nightmare!!! the night before her wedding is so overdone that my brain voice automatically launched into a Victorian schoolmistress voice for the rest of the paragraph.
Kirsti: Honestly, in my head? Bella is actually Mrs Lynde from Anne of Green Gables.
Catherine: Seems accurate.
Bella goes downstairs to eat breakfast and stand on Charlie’s balls about what he has to do that day. Charlie is all frustrated because he has to wear a tux (like a fucking adult) for five minutes and Bella reminds him that it could be worse because she has to wear a dress. Ew, right? That’s something girls wear. So gross. Hope she doesn’t catch girl.
Marines: Bella Swan wears long khaki skirts so she can STFU about any and all items of clothing.
Catherine: She really has no room to judge. But she’s fucking gonna.
Alice arrives and Bella internally (introductorially) (lmao that’s not a word, Katy) refers to her as:
“…my best girlfriend and soon-to-be sister.”
If this is how she treats her best girlfriend I’d hate to see how she treats her worst enemy.
Alice drags Bella into her car and tells her how ratchet she looks.
K: More specifically, Alice says “you might have taken better care of my raw material“, which WTF, Alice? You’re basically saying that Bella’s a lump of clay and you’re going to mould her into a human person. Actually, never mind. Bella’s as interesting as a lump of clay, so that works.
Catherine: Bella tells her that she didn’t sleep well and Alice reminds her that she’ll have plenty of time to sleep on the plane tomorrow. This makes Bella mentally exposition that Edward is giving her a surprise honeymoon to who knows where. Girl! He is going to murder you and leave your body in a fucking swamp! Don’t go ANYWHERE with this man unless you can tell your family where to look for you.
Instead of thinking this is romantic, Bella points out that she’s not stressed about the mystery, it’s just strange. Great. Glad you’re so into this wedding thing. (A: It’s not like marriage and death is a permanent condition or anything. Oh, wait…)
Alice and Bella arrive at the Cullen Lucite murder box and Alice covers Bella’s eyes going in because she doesn’t want her to see the decorations until the ceremony. On the way in Bella smells something wonderful and describes it as:
“…almost intoxicating but not at all overwhelming, the balance of the different fragrances was subtle and flawless. “Orange blossoms…lilac…and something else—am I right?”
It’s laughably out of character for Bella to know this. Meyer goes so far out of her way to point out that Bella has no interests and hates all girly things and yet she can pick apart complicated scent profiles and accurately describe them? Sure. Sure, Meyer.
K: Seriously. This is the girl who can’t distinguish between a Ford and a BMW. And yet she can suddenly work out all these different scents? Bitch, please. Basic Bella would say it smelled floral and call it quits.
Mari: That’s still too generous. Bella would actually say, “I don’t know what it smells like because it doesn’t smell like the best thing in the whole entire world: Edward.”
Catherine: Alice takes Bella into an upstairs bathroom and Bella sees all the makeup laid out and asks:
“Is this really necessary? I’m going to look plain next to him no matter what.”
Annie: How sad is it that even now, four books deep into this garbage series, Bella is still so passive and pathetic as a character, and doesn’t even get to be excited about her own wedding day. I’m not saying that marriage is for everyone, but if you’re going to make that choice, you should at least fucking enjoy it. Be excited about it. Choose a partner, not someone that makes you feel like trash next to. FFS. Meyer, write better characters. Or like, retire.
Mari: My big takeaway from all of this so far is how painful it is to read Bella’s throwaway low self-esteem for pages and pages. She’s crapped on herself so consistently and all for what? Leading up to what’s supposed to be one of the happiest times in her life? It hurts. She hates herself.
Catherine: Alice gets to sanding down the old workbench that is Bella’s face and Bella drifts in and out of consciousness the whole time. Because that’s super helpful when you’re trying to do someone’s makeup. Eventually Rosalie walks in and Bella thinks that she looks so beautiful in her dress that she wants to cry. (M: The shitting on herself parade continues!) (C: And WHAT a parade it is!) Probably because she’s not marrying her, amiright? I’m still interested in the version of this where Bella realizes that she’s a lesbian. Please send in your submissions.
Rosalie offers to do Bella’s hair and Bella nearly pees her pants over this amazing progression because Rosalie has always hated her. Alice tells her to ‘braid it’ and that she ‘wants it intricate’ and this is just making me imagine that they are giving Bella cornrows. Is that what you intended, Meyer?
K: Having just Googled “intricate braided updos”, the results indicate that it’s either white girl cornrows (#klassy) or some godawful catastrophe that looks like someone glued an anchor cable to the back of your head. Take your pick, friends.
Annie: See, this is where my mind went when she said to braid it:
Kimmy Schmidt’s hair style from her days in the bunker. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Catherine: I knew it was a cult!
Alice helps Bella get her dress on (two people managing to get a bridal gown on alone is one of the more difficult to believe things that happens in this book) and then leaves the room so she can go get dressed. She tells Bella to hold her shit together for two seconds and of course Bella can’t.
“I concentrated on my breathing, counting each movement of my lungs, and stared at the patterns that the bathroom light made on the shiny fabric of my skirt. I was afraid to look in the mirror– afraid the image of myself in the wedding dress would send me over the edge into a full-scale panic attack.”
Aw. A bride’s excitement on her big day is so cute!
Look, being nervous on your wedding day is obviously perfectly normal but what Bella’s talking about here isn’t last minute cold feet. She straight up doesn’t want to do this and hates seeing herself as a bride. This isn’t a wedding. This is a hostage situation.
K: SERIOUSLY. Looking at yourself in a wedding dress shouldn’t give you a panic attack. Also, I’m giving major side eye to Alice because when she heads out to get dressed, she tells Bella to chill because “You’re going to sweat off your new face.” Not her make up. HER NEW FACE.
Annie: PSA: If you feel like you’re being taken hostage when you think of getting married, DON’T. You’ve got up until the vows to bail. Do not worry about wrecking your makeup, your deposits, whatever. Don’t go through with it if you feel like you’re being forced into it.
Catherine: Bella literally counts her breaths (200, for the curious) before Alice returns looking vamp-mazing as always. Bella’s mother, whom she refers to as Renee, (for reasons that, again, are never explained) comes in and starts gushing over the decorations and how beautiful Bella looks. Renee is amazed that Bella’s engagement ring has been in Edward’s family since the 1800’s and Bella remembers that she had to tell her mother that.
Because Renee can accurately date diamonds to within a few years. It’s one of the many hidden talents that this book subtly alludes to but never goes into detail about. (M: It’s always missing the real story.)
But let’s talk about the ring. I can’t remember if Edward told her that it was a family heirloom when he proposed to her because I blocked out the entire last 3 books with poorly made bargain-store booze, but assuming that he did and it is, it must be his mother’s right? And his mother died from the Spanish flu when he was like, not around and also dying.
So that means he must have pulled this ring off of her corpse, yes? She didn’t have time to give it to him. SOMEONE pulled that shit off her dead, flu-ridden body and gave it to him. Enjoy your corpse ring, Bella!
ALSO Bella mentions that, despite what they told her mother about the theme of the wedding:
“The wedding wasn’t actually centered around the ring, but around Edward himself.”
….’Kay.
K: This part pissed me off so much because a) WTF?? But b) Renee marvels over what she thinks is an 1800s theme to match the ring, and Bella tells us that “My mom was off on the dress style by more than a hundred years.” Um. NO. She didn’t say an 1800 theme. She said 1800S. At best, she’s off by 18 years, you dumb bitch. How the hell did you even graduate high school?? GOOD THING YOU’RE GOING TO BE REPEATING FOR THE NEXT MILLENNIUM.
Mari: Okay, and how creepy is it to theme your wedding over your 100+ year old husband? EW.
Catherine: It is so unbelievably creepy.
Anyway, Charlie comes in to tell Renee that Esme needs her downstairs and things get all awkward because she left town with his baby 18 years earlier. They have seen each other since, but I assume that’s a lifetime recipe for awkward sauce.
Alice and Charlie help Bella with last minute prep as music starts playing downstairs.
“Rosalie—the best musician in the family next to Edward—began playing the piano downstairs.”
I’m sure Rosalie would be very flattered not only to know that she’s second best but that this particular tidbit has never been brought up before and never will again. As if we needed more proof that this family is a cult, they barely hired any outside help for this wedding and chose to use community—sorry, “family” members to do the labor instead.
K: Meanwhile, I’m laughing my head off because Rosalie’s playing Pachelbel’s Canon for Bella to walk down the aisle to. Any musician who’s spent ANY time at weddings will tell you that Pachelbel’s Canon is the most #basicbitch piece of music you can select. Also, it’s written for STRING QUARTET and it sounds fucking ridiculous on a piano, Bella, so stop thinking you’re all classy and shit.
Annie: I walked down the aisle to I’m Yours, played by a band made up of my brother, my brother’s girlfriend, my dad’s best friend, and two of our close friends. Later in the ceremony, they played Evermore’s Never Let You Go. My sister-in-law walked down the aisle to Here Comes the Sun, played by their close friend. They were awesome tunes, and are proof that there are other songs you can use for a wedding besides Pachelbel’s Canon. There are beautiful songs that are well suited for the piano that Meyer could’ve named dropped. As someone who plays piano, these kinds of things are huge pet peeves for me. But what is research, right?
Catherine: Pfft, that would require imagination. This is Meyer we’re talking about
Bella nearly faints when she realizes that she’s about to walk down the aisle because she’s nervous and she also super doesn’t want to get married. Bella and Charlie start walking down the stairs and to the aisle which I guess is in the living room or something. These paragraphs are all to sickly sweet for me to re-read too many times without getting eye diabetes.
Bella starts blushing when she realizes that everyone is looking at her. But she stops when she sees Edward and has another PG-13 orgasm over how handsome he looks.
“All I really saw was Edward’s face; it filled my vision and overwhelmed my mind. His eyes were buttery, burning gold; his perfect face was almost severe with the depth of his emotion. And then, as he met my awed gaze, he broke into a breathtaking smile of exultation.”
LOL his eyes are buttery? I want to put his eyes on popcorn. Now I’m hungry.
Mari: I’m am disgusted.
K: Did we make cheatery narration shots a thing? If so, I’m making them a thing because we could all use the booze: THERE IS NO WAY FOR BELLA TO KNOW THAT HIS FACE LOOKS SEVERE BECAUSE OF THE DEPTH OF HIS EMOTION. MAYBE HE JUST HAS RESTING BITCHFACE OVER THE CHOICE OF #BASIC MUSIC.
Catherine: This is book 4. Every time we need to take a shot we just do now. That is the new game.
They get to the end of the aisle and do the property hand off thing (K: Which is apparently “a symbol as old as the world“. Um. Steph. Do you know how old the world is? Do you know how old the tradition of marriage as you know it is? Yeeeeeah. NOT THE SAME.) and Meyer doesn’t really go into any specific detail with the description of the ceremony? It’s all painted with a very wide brush. Which is surprising, since I can tell you exactly what Bella has had for breakfast every day for the past year.
Mari: She wrote herself into a pretty big hole by having this be Bella’s most dreaded moment of life. It seems like she finally got here and didn’t know what to do about it. She’s like oddly skipping around now and… I don’t really know what’s happening.
Catherine: Anyway, Bella calls Edward’s skin a “cool miracle” (M: Sounds like chilled mayonnaise?) and they do their vows which she just describes as “simple” and “traditional.” So, Mormon-ey, I guess is what Meyer’s trying to say here. But without actually saying it.
Bella says that the words have been spoken hundreds of times but:
“Never by a couple quite like us.”
Omg we get it, you fucking snowflakes. You’re special.
The minister is Mr. Weber, by the way. Angela’s father. The Webers are really earning their keep in this last book, huh? They’re just everywhere. I mean, they still don’t have first names, but…
Anyway, then Bella submits to being fully brainwashed.
“In that moment, when the minister said his part, my world, which had been upside down for so long now, seemed to settle into its proper position. I saw just how silly I’d been for fearing this—as if it were an unwanted birthday gift or an embarrassing exhibition, like the prom. I looked into Edward’s shining, triumphant eyes and knew that I was winning, too. Because nothing else mattered but that I could stay with him.”
*cough cough*
Ugh. Ugghhhhhh! He’s “triumphant” about finally getting her down the aisle. She sees how “silly” she was being for not wanting to get married? Gross gross gross gross gross.
I mean, this is abuse. He brainwashed her into wanting to marry him. That’s what this is. I’m not sure if that’s what Meyer meant to write but that’s how it reads.
K: SERIOUSLY. If someone wants to turn this into a horror/thriller movie, PLEASE DO. It’d be easy. Hardly any work required.
Annie: I mean… his look of triumph convinced her that she was winning, too? No. Just. This is such an irresponsible representation of what a relationship should be like.
Catherine: Ugh. Anyway.
They both say “I do” and Edward’s voice is “victorious”, because Bella is a prize that he has successfully won, apparently. He’s presumably going to stuff her and mount her on the wall now. (K: I read that as “mount her against the wall” and threw up in my mouth.) (C: I knew I could count on you, Kirsti.) (M: In related news, though, that could probably actually kill her and the whole stuffing and mounting thing would be easier.)
Mr. Weber, the minister, pronounces them man and wife and Bella cries and she thinks Edward would cry too if it weren’t impossible. Look, it’s been a long 3 books but did Meyer ever tell us before that Edward can’t cry? He pees doesn’t he? He can definitely cum, I mean, spoilers, but he can. I’m weirdly interested in knowing what level of fluid can leave his body and through where and I seriously don’t think she’s ever brought it up before. Which is not great writing, btw. I shouldn’t be wondering this in book 4 when the books are each 700 pages long.
K: This is the point where I mention that I’ve literally never understood why everyone’s all “OMG VAMPIRES ARE SOOOOO SEXY!!!”. Because, like, they don’t have heartbeats. Boners rely on blood flow. Therefore, unless the vampirisation process also involves a complete remodel of the fun palace plumbing, vampires can’t get boners. Also, without bloodflow, their digestive systems can’t work, so WHERE DOES ALL THE BLOOD THEY DRINK GO TO? Vampires: literally the least sexy mythical creatures of ever when you think about it for more than 10 seconds.
Mari: Theory: all the blood they drink goes to their penis for magical boners. You are welcome.
Catherine: Glad we solved that.
Bella and Edward kiss and she gets too into it and everyone titters at her but she doesn’t care because she’s MARRIED now so her life has meaning. The chapter ends with the curbhanger reminder that Seth is there instead of Jacob.
Next time on Breaking Dawn: Reception time and hey what’s that in the forest in Chapter 04.
I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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