If all Cinderella had to do to get her Happily Ever After was lose a shoe, I should throw mine out the window. Unfortunately, the whole point of Happily Ever After is that it is hard to find – but that is what makes it worthwhile. It is unique. It is perfection. It is endless bliss. It is beautiful. Happily Ever After is what we all – or perhaps just girls – spend year after year dreaming of and searching for. It cannot be faked. It cannot be lied to. It cannot be forced. It cannot be rushed. Happily Ever After is the reassurance that someday, your prince will come, and when he does, you will be happy and in love for the rest of your days. We can thank Disney for the popularity of the phrase, but Happily Ever After means more than just what children see in princess movies. It is a promise that true love is real, that endless happiness is possible, and that love really can conquer all.

If you look at Happily Ever After in a literal, objective way, its word order seems to be, at the very least, inverted, if not simply unusual. This, however, has great importance in the meaning of Happily Ever After. It can be rephrased as ‘happy for forever,’ symbolizing the perfection of not just the rest of your life, but also in your choice of husband. Happily Ever After means that the right choice can be made, and it is a reassurance that in love, failure is not always the case. This gives people hope in their lives, and purpose in searching for love; it makes them feel less desolate and disheartened because of the knowledge that happiness for forever can be obtained. Happily Ever After can also be rephrased as ‘happy after all’ – this means that you beat the odds, overcame obstacles, and your love endured. The true sign that it was meant to be is that it can survive whatever real or animated life throws your way. This is a reassurance as well because it gives people faith that obstacles can be defeated and true love can last through it all. This interpretation of Happily Ever After is the form with which society is most deeply obsessed, because it is what they desperately seek: an indestructible love that cannot be degraded by time, money, or ego. “Happy after all” also means that, despite popular belief, you found your true love. Many have argued, and will continue to do so, that Happily Ever After does not exist; it is a fairytale, something that can never be obtained. But that is why you must search for it, because people have found it – everyday people, no better or different than you. They searched, they succeeded, they fell in love, in the most perfect way that they could, and they found their dream. It is sometimes a long and difficult journey, since Happily Ever After is not always found on the first try – that’s why they invented divorce, ladies and gentlemen – but it is possible, and this is an absolute fact that should be never be questioned. When you find your Happily Ever After, there is no single word to describe the feeling that you are exactly where you are meant to be. Luckily for Disney princesses, they found that perfection the first time around.

The Disney version of Happily Ever After developed the most recognizable qualities of it, and these are all components of the very real masterpiece. Happily Ever After from Disney means that girls have very unrealistic expectations and standards for boys, but finding Happily Ever After means that you have found a boy that meets those expectations and is perfect for you. Every Disney princess is different, as are their princes. Therefore, there is a different Happily Ever After and a different true love for everyone, as everyone has a different view of beauty and perfection. Disney also created a variety of princesses from different ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds. This developed a view of Happily Ever After as something for everyone, not just a select group of particularly special people. Everyone can feel its warmth, know its devotion, and revel in its splendorous, radiating glow. Love and Happily Ever After truly are blind; they know no boundaries, no end, no color, or dollar bill. They know not what beauty is, because Happily Ever After does not care. Vanity belongs to cruel affection, not true love’s perfection. Misshapen, missing limp, deformed, it does not matter. To Happily Ever After, love is love, simple as that.

Happily Ever After is something that you long for and dream of, especially if you grew up on Disney princess movies. The need to have that princess-y, love-at-first-sight, let’s-break-into-song-because-we-love-each-other feeling is a little far-fetched, but still very much so desirable. The idea of being someone’s foundation, their best friend, and very suddenly the center of their world is enticing almost beyond description. The core of human relationships is the feeling that we must be wanted. Happily Ever After is a vow that you will be not only wanted, but desired and needed for the rest of your life. Someone is reliant on your smile to pull them through the day, your hand in theirs to comfort and guide them, and your love every day for the rest of the days that come. Happily Ever After is a once upon a time promise that you can be in love, that you can find the one that you were meant to spend the rest of your life with, someone that makes you feel like a princess. He will talk Disney to you, not dirty. He will love the way you hum songs that are stuck in your head. Your daughter will have his eyes. When you go, he will want to go, too, like Johnny and June. This vision, this perfectly designed dream, is Happily Ever After. Everything you ever imagined, every emotion and moment you orchestrated in your mind, is real. That is what Happily Ever is: a dream come true.
Oh, you lost your shoe? That’s alright, love found it, so you can walk comfortably and happily, forever after.