"The moment you become engaged, your rite of passage begins. From this point on, you begin to cut your ties to your identity as single woman so you can slowly prepare for your transformation into wife. What does it mean to "cut ties" to something as intangible as an identity? It means spending some time thinking about the elements that have come together to form your identity as a single person. It means realizing that after you marry your relationships to your girlfriends, sisters, mother, and father will be altered and allowing yourself to grieve these changes and separations. It means acknowledging that being single means being free, and that when you marry you will sacrifice an aspect of this freedom. In fact, in traditional cultures, the members consider all rites of passage as a sacrifice and a gift, a separating and a joining, a death and a rebirth. As much as the wedding is a time of celebration, happiness, and new beginnings, it is also a time of saying goodbye to an entire identity and grieving the losses."
~Sheryl Nissinen