Beth and Wes Besser’s whirlwind courtship had all the romantic clichés.
They met at a New York Jewish wedding. He wooed her with gourmet dinners, fine wine and flower bouquets. He surprised her with dozens of roses, then whisked her into his arms and said, “Will you marry me?”
But behind the fantasy was a real love story — deep, tender, funny, spiritual and bittersweet.
The fortysomething couple wanted to share their story with family and friends. But who had time on a busy wedding day?
So the Bessers, who live in Boston, were interviewed by Southern California journalist Ellen Braunstein, a former writer for Jewish newspapers, who owns Courtship Stories wedding favors and keepsakes.
Braunstein wrote their story with twists and turns, humor and tenderness. She produced an eight-page booklet with photos and illustrations that brought the couple’s romance to life. It was a favor and keepsake that guests would enjoy reading at the wedding, the couple thought.
“We loved our story and wanted to make it real, not fantasy,” said Beth, an energy industry consultant. “Putting it into words and pictures preserved special memories of those times.”
Courtship Stories (www.courtship-stories.com) takes a page from “Vows,” the enormously popular wedding column in the Sunday New York Times. “Vows” focuses on a distinctive couple and gives readers the story of how they met and an inside look at their ceremony and reception.
“My stories end with the marriage proposal, not with what the bride wore,” said Braunstein, a Redlands resident. “And for some couples, it’s a real cliffhanger. There’s fear, bumbling. Nothing goes according to plan.”
Braunstein came up with the idea for Courtship Stories after her own wedding in 2000 in Washington, D.C. She had met her husband, Mark, a violin and viola teacher, after receiving 800 responses to a JDate ad that ran for four years.
“I wish I had a handout at my wedding for every time I had to compress our story into a single sentence: ‘We met on the Internet.’ There was so much more to tell.”
Beth and Wes’ story conveyed who they were and what attracted them to each other.
“He was tall, good looking and Jewish with a head of hair, everything my grandmother wanted me to marry,” Beth thought when she first met Wes, a New York industry executive.
Wes saw an attractive and independent woman in Beth. “She had beautiful hazel eyes, soft skin, no blemishes or wrinkles. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Beth met Wes at a family wedding, thanks to her sister’s matchmaking. But for Beth, the memory of her father saddened the otherwise joyous occasion. Her father had died two years earlier. He would never escort three of his four daughters down the aisle at their weddings.
When Wes decided to propose, he waited until her father’s yahrzeit. “I knew June 30 had a sad and meaningful connection for Beth. I was going to give it a wonderful meaning. There is happy and sad at a Jewish wedding. That is why we break a glass.”
That night Wes turned off the lights and arranged a path of red roses leading to her bed. Beth entered the room. Confused in the dark, she saw a wet mess on the floor and assumed her cat Callie had “coughed up a fur ball.”
Wes laughed. Then he swept her into his arms and asked her to marry him.