The Wedding Dress that Keeps on Giving

Given my inner burn to recycle, reuse, avoid buying, and decrease the flow of stuff to the place that stuff goes to die, it may come as no surprise that I actively seek ways to wear that item, often cursed in the closet for its girth, its awkwardness, its expense: ye olde wedding dress. Lawn bowling, bathtub cleaning, and the water park are a few of my favourite dress destinations. This inner burn is perhaps, um, less than classy. I can hear it now … you might be a redneck if … you wear your wedding dress to parties and people ask you where the other half is.

[For those of us not interested in the ridiculousness that is a relatively boring wedding dress shopping narrative, skip to the ridiculousness of me photographing myself in it earlier this week.]

In a classic example of the battle of wits between mice and men, or in this case, mother and daughter, the wedding dress search and purchase was a compromise. I wanted colour, maybe electric blue. My mom wanted conventional, virginal white. Aside from that whole purity thing which irritates me, and the princess thing which makes me uncomfortable, I really wanted a dress that I could wear again, at least in theory. My mom – somehow – got that I was pretty strong on the white issue and didn’t put up too much of a fuss, though she fought me to the death on high heels. They were a must in her book. When I suggested, every so gently I’m sure, that I wouldn’t be able to walk at my own wedding, she said with a smile, “too bahdd.” Take that, contrarian daughter! (In Retrospect #1: I still regret not pushing back harder on that one. Matching ballet slippers would have been pretty fun.)

So, along comes my mother for dress shopping, and magically, things went relatively smoothly. I tried on a few bridesmaids’ dresses before finding something that we both really, really liked. It was dark brown. I love brown. My mom primly suggested we look at the other colours available. Being so completely reasonable, I agreed to look at the swatch card, which had a number of colours that excited me and a number of versions of white that caught my mom’s eye. Then, our gaze magically landed on the silver square of fabric at about the same time. We looked at one another, our eyes meeting like two people in a bad movie who thought they hated each other until they discover their love in one another’s brow, scent, and sheen. (Is that a weird thing to say about your mother?) We were of one mind. (In Retrospect #2: I kind of let my mom get her way by agreeing to silver, it’s not a colour after all, and could be mistaken for an almost-white sort of dress. It certainly didn’t make an electric blue statement.)

To fast forward, the silver dress was ordered, it was a hit (with me, anyway), and I later wore it shamelessly at my 29th birthday party – a “wear something in your closet you have no excuse to wear” party. I couldn’t have been more pleased to get the news that I had an excuse to wear it again, at a black tie affair with dignitaries and other lesser life forms, that I was invited to by association. The affair was fun, the dress appropriate, the food excellent, and the company lively. There was however no dancing. How I love to dance (link includes a full length view of said dress). I also learned that the affair may be an annual one, which means that rather than selling or cocktailing (it’s a term) the 3 – seriously, three – full-length gowns in my closet as I had planned, I may in fact hang onto them, or let the closet hang onto them.

Sadly, my camera is happily bumming around in Calgary like some sort of teenage delinquent driving her mother crazy and I was unable to get a proper picture of the full effect. We’ll have to accept my impressions of a three-year-old twirling in a tutu in the dark that I took at the END of the night.

In retrospect, I could have repositioned the computer, moved further away, and turned on a light

I also could have smiled and moved the barometer

I shall return to things of relevance, or things that involve less shopping, in my next post.