My parents were married on November 24, 1963. If that date sounds ominous, it is probably because on two days before, President John F. Kennedy was shot dead. This November, my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary as the rest of the country observed the anniversary of a great loss.

My parents' wedding album shows few signs of the chaos that rocked the country at that time. No newspaper clippings are folded into their wedding album, save for their engagement and wedding announcements. The photos show friends and relatives smiling, dancing. My father looks young and endearingly nervous. My mother, at the time a physical education major in college, flashes a mischievous grin as she lifts the hem of her dress to reveal that she is wearing white gym socks instead of dainty high-heeled shoes.

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy was a leading style icon in 1963, and the Kennedy influence is apparent in my mother's ivory gown, with its fashionable scoop neck, full princess skirt, and cap sleeves. As maid of honor, her sister wears a red cocktail dress and tiny hat, reminiscent of a Jackie Kennedy pillbox.

I checked out from the library the Autumn 1963 issue of The Bride's Magazine, curious to see the influence for myself. Between the predictable articles on the "ABC's of your lingerie trousseau" (the column recommended that every young bride own a minimum of six girdles - ouch!) and carpet fiber charts, the pictures looked just like my mom's dress - page after page of fitted bodices and sleeves, coupled with full skirts with bustles and crinolines and voluminous embroidered trains. One ad called this the "proportioned silhouette," although I couldn't imagine whose proportions these might be.

When it was my turn to get married, I asked to wear my mother's wedding dress.

However, my plans went awry from the moment we retrieved her dress from the attic. The ivory satin I knew from my parents' wedding album had yellowed dramatically to the color of dirty dentures ... except for the lace bodice, which had turned an unappealing gray.

We brought the dress to a seamstress to work her magic, to modify the dress to fit my size and taste. The plan was to remove part of the old-fashioned train and use the extra fabric to lengthen the bodice, allowing drapes of fabric to soften the effect of the dress's odd two-tone discoloration.

Given the unfortunate history that took place on my parents' wedding day, what was I thinking when I wanted to wear my mother's gown?

As the first pieces of fabric fluttered to the floor, I felt triumphant that I had avoided shopping for a dress, and that my attire would be unique, it would have history. A heady combination of laziness and sentiment prevailed.

I also remember hoping that wearing my mom's dress would help ensure for my relationship the longevity that my parents enjoyed. However, one thought that didn't cross my mind until much later was the JFK-Jackie Kennedy relationship, with its storied infidelities and abrupt, tragic ending.

Still draped in the folds of my 1963 reverie, I thought about what the years after the wedding held for the Jackie Kennedy generation, and what my future might hold. I'm not convinced that my mother's generation of young brides had it easy. Looking ahead, my mother would go on to become part of the vanguard of early career moms in the 1970s, a beneficiary and a victim of having it all - both career and family and all its attendant expectations. "The Feminine Mystique" and "The Stepford Wives" were aimed at her demographic. Her generation was the one torn between the twin stigmas of the working mother and the nonworking mother.

Eventually, the snipping and pinning stopped, and the seamstress delivered the bad news: The seams were too narrow and the fabric too frail to reassemble the garment. Not only was I without a wedding dress, my mother now was without her heirloom, which lay in limp pieces on the seamstress's floor. I was ready to get married in jeans and white gym socks, to carry on at least one family tradition.

So it was back to the bridal shop for me, where eventually, I found a new gown that mimicked the lines of my mother's dress - the full princess skirt, the lace bodice. It would have fit into a 1963 issue of Bride's magazine. My "something borrowed" would be my grandmother's pearl necklace, not my mother's dress.

The day of my wedding (also in November) was not without incident, such as the early winter snowstorm that threatened to keep many guests from attending. But overall, the day was a success. My dress was flawless in its cool '60s style, and I was forgiven for disemboweling my mother's dress. What do I take away from all this? That bad things can happen, even on what the wedding industry trumpets as "the most special day of your life." Some disappointments are minor, like a dress falling apart. Others, unfortunately, are tragedies on a national scale. Put into perspective, my tragedy wasn't so terrible after all.