In many ways, this was an opportunity to have the family I grew up with back together. I asked my father to officiate the wedding, and my mother and Ashlee were both my maids of honor. My parents had trouble being in the same room, and now I was going to make them stand next to each other up there with Ashlee just so I could look at them.
My father called me three days before we left for the wedding to tell me he was bringing his friend Jonathan, a young model he often shot for his new photography business.
“He wasn’t on the list,” I said. There was a pause. I reminded myself that I needed to accept my father for who he was as he worked it out in real-time.
“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to handle my father now, so I worked with the information he was ready to give me. Maybe I wasn’t ready to listen, I don’t know. My mother was bringing someone, too, her own Jon, the landscaper who’d made my Hansel and Gretel cottage so beautiful. He was kind and treated her well. People move on, even if I couldn’t.
“Dad, whatever you do, don’t forget your Bible,” I said. “I want your Bible there, the one you preached with.”
We set the wedding for July 5, with everyone arriving July 3 to have time to spend with close family. We booked all of San Ysidro Ranch for our guests, wanting it to be private and special for everybody. On Independence Day, we hosted a Texas-style barbecue for the guests. Eric’s grandparents were able to come, and we were able to let them stay in the Kennedy Cottage, where then Senator John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed on their honeymoon. Eric idolized his grandfather and modeled his own strong, masculine presence on him and his dad, Stephen.
I wasn’t alone long that morning. My mother led a team of fairylike bridesmaids to fetch me and start the preparation process. Carolina Herrera had made me a champagne-colored gown with gold embroidery, and I gasped when I saw it hung in a window, backlit next to the little one she made for Maxwell. She was my flower girl, and Ace would be a ring bearer along with Ashlee’s son, Bronx. I didn’t want to wear straight white, but I couldn’t help but want a princess dress that flared. A bit of Texas in San Ysidro fairyland. My stylist Nicole Chavez and I spent months picking out gowns—gauzy shades of the lightest blue, lavender, and green—for my twelve bridesmaids. We’d look on all the runways and ask nicely if we could maybe borrow a dress. It was like high school, when I would help girls get ready for a party. I worked with all of them to choose how they wanted their hair for the day. I wanted every one of my girlfriends to feel their most beautiful.
I saw my dad right before the ceremony, holding an iPad outside the chapel we’d built for the day. He’d forgotten his Bible. His iPad was about to die, and he would just have to wing it. Jessica, it’s okay, I told myself. Maybe that’s what we all needed to learn how to do better. To wing it. I’d put a lot of pressure on my father to be the man I knew in Dallas. I wanted him to move people through his words. And yes, I wanted people to think that he was okay. That our family was okay. But there was a time when I was figuring out who I was, and now it was his turn. Wing it, Jessica.
To begin the ceremony, I had an eighteen-piece orchestra playing selections from the score of Great Expectations. Yes, I know that is a lot, but you should know by now I don’t do things halfway. Once the procession started, the kids received standing ovations. Ace was unsure at first, but then Eric crouched down low to stretch out his arms. He went right to Eric. When it was my moment to walk down the aisle, the orchestra began the song “The Day All My Dreams Came True.” It plays in the movie when the hero, after going through so much, is finally happy. The song couldn’t have been a more perfect choice.
Be here in this moment, I told myself. Through the lace of my veil, I saw my family all together and my loved ones, all waiting for me, framed by gorgeous hanging greens and flowers. But Eric. There was a look of uncertainty on his face that he couldn’t hide. It was the pull of his smile. He could fool everyone else but not me. Oh gosh, does he not like my dress?
I left it. Be here, Jess. My father did a wonderful job. People were crying, and as he talked, I glanced at Ashlee and my mom. Here we were, all grown up together. Each forming our own path. When my dad pronounced us husband and wife, a big cheer went up. I could hear Maxi and Ace’s voices among them.
“Babe,” Eric whispered. “I split my pants completely when I grabbed Ace.”
“I knew something was wrong!” I yelled, then whispered. “Lemme see.”
Sure enough, his tuxedo pants were split from his crotch to the top of his butt. The whole time, he wasn’t sure if people were seeing his underwear. Once everybody was gone, we went behind a curtain, and he took his pants off. We had a seamstress come and sew them while he stood in his boxers. People were waiting for us, and I know there was a lot of “Where are they?” Someone piped up with, “Well, Jessica’s definitely had sex, so it’s not for that.”
Once we were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, it was like the lid was lifted off the wedding. Eric did a speech greeting everyone and spoke about his grandfather and his pledge to take care of me and the kids forever, just as his grandfather had done for his wife and family. It was so sweet and emotional. Then I could just relax. Eric and I didn’t want to do a lot of the party-stopping traditional things like a first dance or cutting of the cake. We wanted everybody to have a blast. We had a huge band with seven different singers, and there was a moment when the four of us were holding hands on the dance floor. I don’t remember the song, but I remember the weight of Ace in my arms, the twirl of Maxwell’s dress, and the sureness of Eric.
“Hi, husband,” I said.
“Hi, wife,” he said.
That never got old. Four years and two babies in, we were husband and wife. I had a running joke, “I want to get married, but I keep getting pregnant.” But the truth is that it made perfect sense that we were all together to share our wedding day. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
26
I Once Was Lost
January 2015
There’s a Before and an After, but I have had a hard time pinpointing when exactly things changed. As I write this book, I’ve been having heart-to-hearts with all my friends, and each has a different moment in which they began to worry about me.
I know when I started to worry, though I kept it to myself. I was convinced I could make it work. It was after the holidays, which had been hard. Maxwell and Ace were only three and two years old, and when I hosted family gatherings, I realized that they would never know a time when their grandparents were together. Eric’s parents were wonderful and had even moved out west to be closer to us. But I wanted my mom and dad to be together for my kids, like I’d had with my grandparents. My parents were so enmeshed in my life and career, and when I needed them most, it felt like they’d abandoned me to start their lives over.
The anxiety that had so long colored the edges of my life began to take hold of me. There had been so much happening to crowd out those feelings: trying to get pregnant, then having two babies under two, a new house, and a wedding. The Jessica Simpson Collection expanded to over thirty categories, and we were at the point where we cleared a billion dollars in sales. Even if I wanted to think about my parents’ marriage crashing and what it meant about all I’d held as the foundation of my life, there was no time.