Charlotte Eulette of Montclair, New Jersey, ceremoniously reclaimed her maiden name and slipped a ring from her mother on her newly bare wedding ring finger.
Cathryn Michon hit the Los Angeles restaurant Mr. Chow with some friends who’d brought divorce gifts.
In Las Vegas, reality-show regular Shanna Moakler served a three-tiered gateau — complete with knife-wielding-bride cake topper (and matching dead groom) — to attendees after her (first) split from Travis Barker.
If just discussing divorce in public seemed taboo a few years ago, the growing trend of divorce celebrations is helping lessen the stigma surrounding the end of marriage.
“Yes, it’s sad and it’s painful, but it’s not failure,” says Christine Gallagher, the owner of Los Angeles event company The Divorce Party Planner and the author of a book by the same name. “It’s part of life, and yet it’s the only major event for which we have no ritual.
“A celebration communicates that divorce is OK — life-affirming, even.”
Michon, 38, agrees. “It’s like an Irish wake. Just because there’s been a death doesn’t mean you can’t have food and drink, acknowledge the past and hope good things for the future. It’s about closure.”
