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Yep. I never had a real wedding dress before. To be honest, I never had a real wedding before.

When I was first married (I was 24), #1 and I had lived together for 5 years, and we decided that since we were about to try to have a child, it was time to get married. It was all very factual, no real proposal, nothing as frivolous as an engagement ring. In fact, I wheeled and dealed and got him to agree to an actual wedding ceremony by promising that I would keep the total cost under $500. We had a beach party wedding right on Lake Michigan. We used the public park, we had the mayor do the legal stuff, we recorded our own music, took our own pictures and had 5 foot subs for food, No honeymoon. And I made my dress. P.S. I am not a seamstress. It was a cute wedding, everyone had fun. And I came in just under budget as promised. Everyone thought it was a hoot actually, and I got a million compliments on how different it was. One half hour before the ceremony began, the clouds rolled in and we had to use headlights when we drove into the park (it was 11:00 am). During the ceremony, the rain was likened to a monsoon, the thunder boomed and lighting struck sharply all around us. Funny how I missed that as a sign of things to come! We divorced 11 years later.

After a year of being single, I met the jackass and four months later we got married. Don't even try and tell me how stupid that was, ok? Ok. He already had two failed marriages behind him (I SAID DON'T MENTION IT!), and once again I found myself trying very hard to have a bargain wedding, cutting corners everywhere I could, and in the process almost apologizing for even having a wedding at all. in fact, it became almost a side show. He had a Hawaiian wedding under a tent that cost a small fortune (D'OH!). We used the jackass's sister in law for a minister because she had purchased some lame Minister of Mother Earth title that made it legal to perform marriages. And this time my mom made the dress. It was absolutely beautiful. Again, there was no honeymoon...ok, there was one night at the Sybaris where he spent most of the time measuring the room so he could build our room like it, and then passed out from what would be a familiar pattern of alcoholic bingeing. The wedding cost a LOT more than I had intended, and yet it had none of the elements I pretended to scorn. This one blew apart after 4 years, limped along for an additional one before he moved out, and then took another 18 months to legally end.

Sometime around when it blew, I met MOTH on the internet.

Fast forward to last Spring, 3 years after I met MOTH. When he proposed to me, one of the things he asked was what kind of wedding I'd always wanted. Huh? He made me think about it, and when I described to him the wedding I'd always thought I'd like, I started to cry. It really hadn't dawned on me that I really ever wanted a church wedding and a white dress and now it was just too late! With my tears came the realization that I had scaled down weddings and hadn't done had church ceremony because I felt that I wasn't worthy of the fuss and fanfare and expense of a real wedding, and no one would want to come to a wedding for me unless I put on some show to entertain them. I felt so horrible telling him these things. He just held me and promised that we would have the wedding I'd always wanted. That we now had a church, and we would celebrate our union there, and that he wanted me to get the dress I'd always wanted, because everyone deserves to be a star at least for one day in their lives.

So I went out with my mom and the Beast. And I was dreading it. I strapped on the best bra I own and wished I hadn't stopped taking the "X." We got to the bridal shop and looked at about 200 dresses shoved into 2 rooms. Out of that lot, we picked 5 possible gowns. I put off the inevitable for as long as I could before surrendering to the inevitable humiliation of the fitting. Only childbirth is worse on the ego. So I had to stand in the middle of a room lined in mirrors and strip in front of not only my mother and the Beast, but a skinny stranger. Shit. Dress #1 was ok. But I wasn't sure. It looked kind of nice. #2 was like a size 400. It swam on me, and it was hard to tell how it would look if it fit, but it didn't really do anything for me. Dress #3 was not my size, and I wanted to pass on it. It was kind of plain, and why torture myself into something so obviously small? But the thin bitch insisted that I should try. So she managed it up over my head but there was no way my arms were going to make it through those tiny holes. So, she suggested that she hold the bodice up against me the way it would lay so I could see it. And the damnedest thing happened. I looked in the mirror, and it just sorta went like the Disney Cinderella! It just came alive, and dare I say...I looked pretty. I mean, I did. The dress was magical. And I didn't want to take it off. Ever. And perhaps if the sleeves had fit, I might not have. Just to seem not so impulsive, I tried on the last two dresses, but mom, Beast, and skinny lady all said that there was no contest.

And so, I got a wedding dress today. One that a little girl would look up at and admire. One that I know will make him smile when he sees me in it. One that made me smile, albeit self-conciously, when I saw myself in it. And you know what? It's WHITE!

No pictures until after the event in June. Sorry.

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