Year after year, 20-something women come to New York City in search for two L's:
Labels and Love.
Twenty years ago, I was one of them.
Having gotten the knack for labels early, I concentrated on my search for love.
Turns out, a knock-off is not as easy to spot when it comes to love.
That is why you need help to spot them, lots of help.
Help also known as Charlotte York, Miranda Hobbes ans Samantha Jones.
My name is Carrie Bradshaw, and I'm a writer.
~Carrie
Year after year, my single girlfriends were my salvation.
And as it turns out, my meal ticket.
Charlotte was looking for the perfect love.
So Charlotte and Harry journeyed to China and back for their daughter, Lily.
Miranda was a disciple of tough love.
And Miranda journeyed to Brooklyn for Brady and Steve.
Samantha's love was sex... Lots of sex.
And then she found a man that combined sex and love.
So Samantha journeyed to Hollywood with television star, Smith Jerrod.
As foe mr, I was looking for something big, Mr. Big.
Turns out when that big love comes along it's not always easy.
And despite all the other chapters of my life,
no one was ever quite big enough until...
[Mr. Big: Carrie, you're the one].
And just like that, I was.
~Carrie
"My thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved.
I can live only wholly with you or not at all.
Be calm my life, my all.
Only by calm consideration of out existance can we achieve our purpose to live together.
Oh, continue to love me, never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours."
~Carrie, quoting Ludwig van Beethoven's love letter to Immortal Beloved
Miranda: How often do you guys have sex?
Charlotte: Sex... [glance to her daughter] Miranda, please...
Miranda: What?
Charlotte: She's 3. She doesn't know what it means.
Miranda: I'm 41 and I still don't know what it means.
Charlotte: I know, but she is repeating everything.
Samantha: If I'd known the girl talk was gonna be on lockdown,
I wouldn't have flown 3000 miles.
Charlotte: No, we can talk. Let's just not use that word.
Miranda: Fine. How often do you guys...
Carrie: Color? [as she accompanied Lily coloring her drawing book]
Miranda: Thank you...
Samantha: Well, I can't color enough.
I could color all day everyday if I had my way, I would use every crayon in my box.
Carrie: We get it, you love to color.
[to Miranda] Why are you asking?
Miranda: Well, last night Steve and I were coloring, and I was just about to...
Samantha: Come? [Charlotte glare to her]
I'm sorry, there's no crayon equivalent.
Miranda: And he wanted to switch positions and I said...
[chuckle] "Let's just get it over with."
[everybody makes a pity look]
He kept trying to make it last longer.
Samantha: And this is bad?
Miranda: It is when you have a full-time job.
Samantha: I have a full time job.
Miranda: You don't also have a 5-years-old, play dates, PTA meetings,
and a mother-in-law in a rest home with advancing Alzheimer's.
We're just going through no-coloring phase.
It comes and goes, right?
Charlotte: Every couple is different.
Harry and I make love two, three times a week.
Miranda: Great, now I feel worse.
Samantha: Well, when was the last time for you?
Miranda, pause for a minute: Six months ago...
Carrie: Oh my...
[while Charlotte and Samantha look shock]
Miranda: It sounds long.
But... but there's a dry spell.
Samantha: I bet it is.
Charlotte: Hey Carrie, what about you and Big?
[Carrie shake her head]
Come on... I told... Tell!
Carrie, still shake her head: But I will tell you this...
When Big colors, he rarely stays inside the lines.
Miranda: Well, this has been very helpful.
It took 4 friends, 3 days to put 20 years into 38 boxes.
~Carrie
Two hundred people? Page six?
This is my third marriage.
How do you think that makes me look?
~Mr. Big
Now there were times when we had our doubts about this gorgeus man.
But after careful observation over the last hundred years, my doubts are over.
So, here's to the groom, a man who finally got carrie-d away.
~Samantha
You two are crazy to get married.
Marriage ruins everything.
~Miranda, to Mr. Big
Samantha, after saw Miranda's dense pubic hair: Jesus, honey, wax much?
Miranda: What?
I didn't know I was gonna be wearing a bathing suit.
Charlotte: What are you talking about?
Miranda: I forgot to wax.
Samantha: Since when? 1998?
Miranda: I've had other things in my mind.
Samantha: I could be on death row and not have that situation.
Miranda: Well Samantha, when you're married, you have a different set of priorities.
Samantha: Oh honey, don't blame marriage...
[point to Charlotte] This one's married and she's not growing a national forest.
How do you even cross your legs?
Let me make you a spa appointment.
Any thicker, and you won't be able to find it.
Miranda, got pissed-off: So what, it's my fault?
I let the sex go out of my marriage?
I deserve what I got?
Thanks for understanding! [leaving]
Carrie: He's a bad guy. Always was! Bad guys do bad things.
Miranda: And good guys do bad things.
The good guys screw you and the bad guys screw you.
Samantha: The rest of them don't know how to screw you.
Trust me, I've done the legwork.
Charlotte: I'm pregnant...
Carrie: How?
Charlotte: You know how people always say that when you stop trying, it can happen?
And my doctor says that she knows other couples who have adopted
and then they get pregnant?
I guess in certain houses, fairy tales do come true.
~Carrie
Carrie: I got an email from Big.
"I don't know what to say."
Hey, don't send an email?
Miranda: What were you expecting?
Carrie: In the subject box, two words: "I'm sorry".
Miranda: Ugh... Steve is all about "I'm sorry".
"I'm sorry" emails, "I'm sorry" voice mails,
"I'm sorry" flowers, "I'm sorry" cards...
How about don't do anything to be "I'm sorry" for?
Carrie: Well maybe he's sorry.
Miranda: Well maybe so is Big.
The wedding of Carrie Bradshaw and John James Preston
was canceled as this issue went to press.
Bradshaw is still single and living in New York City.
~Vogue Editor
Look, the people who don't know will only see the beautiful pictures.
The people who do know will only see what an asshole he is.
~Charlotte, to Carrie
All right then, enjoy yourself, that's what your 20s are for.
Your 30s are to learn the lessons.
Your 40s are to pay the drinks.
~Carrie to Louise
Because I'm afraid something bad is gonna happen.
It's a miracle I'm even pregnant.
I have everything I ever wanted.
I am so happy that I'm terrified.
~Charlotte
Charlotte: You really can't forgive him?
Miranda: Are you suggesting something?
Charlotte: I like Steve, I always liked Steve.
He's appologized 100 times, he's not seeing anyone else.
What's it gonna take?
Miranda: Are you also suggesting that she forgive Big?
Charlotte: NO! I could kill Big!
Sometimes when I'm running, I imagined what I would say to him if I ever saw him again.
I have the perfect opening line.
Do you wanna hear it?
Carrie: Uh, yeah...
Charlotte: I curse the day you were born.
I deserve what I got.
Running all over New York, believing that I'm finally getting my happy ending.
"See, love does conquer all.
Look at me in my one-of-a-kind wedding gown, marrying the love of my life".
And Miranda, in that article, I did not say 'we' once.
The whole article was "I think" and "I want".
Exactly! The whole wedding was my point of view.
I let the wedding get bigger than Big.
I am the reason that he did not get out of the car.
~Carrie
You know what I think hurts the most?
Is that you kept a secret from me.
And I have never, ever kept a secret from you! Ever!
No, I'm lying...
For the last 5 months I've been thinking that it is a huge mistake that you left Steve.
There!
How does it feel?
~Carrie, to Miranda
Carrie: You badger me to forgive you in 3 days
and you won't even considered forgiving Steve for something he did six months ago.
Miranda: It's not the same thing.
Carrie: It's forgiveness.
Miranda: I don't know that I can trust that it won't happen again.
Therapist: Steve, you're very quiet today.
Steve: Miranda, I know I made it hard for you to trust me,
but... you made it hard for me to trust you.
Miranda: Me?
Steve: The way you treated me and cut me out of your life like that.
I mean, yeah... I broke the vow, but what about the other vows?
Like promising to love someone for better or for worse.
What about that?
How do I know she's not gonna punish me for the rest of my life?
Therapist: You don't.
And she doesn't know for sure that you won't have another indiscretion.
All you can know is that you wanna move forward
and risk that the love you have for each other won't allow that to happen.
And that's what we'll discover here.
Samantha: You're gonna find a wonderful woman who loves being in a relationship.
Jarred: What will you find?
Samantha: I don't know...
But that's a risk I'm willing to take.
Some love stories aren't epic novels.
Some are short stories.
But that doesn't make them any less filled with love.
~Carrie
Carrie: Saint Louise, you brought me back to life.
Louise: And you gave me Louis Vuitton.
We were perfectly happy before we decided to live happily ever after.
~Carrie, to Mr. Big
Carrie Bradshaw, love of my life, will you marry me?
~Mr. Big
And as I put the wedding gown away, I couldn't help but wonder,
why is it that we're willing to write our own vows but not our own rules?
~Carrie
Maybe some labels are best left in the closet.
Maybe when we label people "bride, groom, husband, wife, married, single",
we forgot to look past the label to the person.
~Carrie
And there, in the same city where they met as girls,
4 New York women entered the next phase of their lives,
dressed head to toe in love.
And that's the one label that never goes out of style.
~Carrie
*****
beautiful collection.
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