The One Dress

Arianne did a post about the story behind her wedding dress and I loved it so much I wanted to do one too.

We got married in the spring and I wanted the dress to reflect that. And I wanted a long train and lots of poof! (Sorry for the craptastic quality of these pictures, I scanned these on an ancient machine that I believe has been around since the Middle Ages.)

Our wedding was in the morning and it was cold and raining on and off, so the pictures at the temple look gray and cloudy. We had an evening reception and by then it was sunny and warm, so those pictures turned out much better. This is behind the reception site. The dress looks too long here because I changed into flip-flops for the dancing and I forgot to put my heels back on for the photos. Doh!



In sharp contrast to every other shopping experience of my life, this was the very first dress I tried on. Of course I didn't believe it could be that easy, so I tried on a lot of others, but in the end this was The One. I didn't even have to have it altered; I fit into the size 6 perfectly (oh, those were the days!) In her Maid of Honor speech, Andrea used the analogy of the dress in describing my relationship with Eric; he was my first love, but I had to "try on" a lot of others before I realized that he was the one. Made me sound kind of slutty, but that's OK.



My bouquet had tulips (my favorite flower), irises, roses, and freesia. I gave the florist a very loose idea of what I wanted and I was thrilled with what she created; it was exactly what I had envisioned, without me actually having specifically envisioned it. We released butterflies at the end of our ring ceremony and one landed on my bouquet. Totally unplanned. I also like this picture because you can see my engagement ring, which is now at the bottom of the Atlantic, presumably somewhere near the Outer Banks (that's a whole other traumatic story.)



No, that's not Eric - this is me dancing with my dad. Not the most flattering picture of either one of us, but you can see the details on the back of the dress. The embroidery covered the whole bodice and the embroidered flowers in my veil matched the flowers on my dress.



One more shot so you can see it bustled in all its poofiness (I believe that is the technical term used by designers.) This was during our ring ceremony, which was performed by my dad before the reception. Also in this picture are (L to R) my little sis Erin, Andrea (Maid of Honor and BFF extraordinaire), and Eric's brother and Best Man Spencer.

If only I could wear my wedding dress every day! I loved every second I spent in it on one of the happiest days of my life. They should make it so you have to get re-married every 10 years or something, that would be so fun. Expensive, but fun.