Wedding Dress

  

So during my trip to Ohio, I went thrifting with my friend Sparkle, which has become one of our traditions when I visit.  We covered two Goodwills, a Salvation Army, and a great little shop called New to You, which always has a good selection of vintage shoes, hats, dresses, and separates in addition to its contemporary resale items.

And it feels a little like fate that on that particular day a few weeks ago, I decided to go upstairs at New to You to look at their gown selection.  There were two different rooms, and the first had a few racks of recent prom dresses and general eveningwear - nothing super special.  The second, smaller room had a big rack of petticoats and a half-off rack with some older wedding dresses, sparkly poly dresses from the seventies, and somehow, miraculously, this pristine sequined Emma Domb gown from the early sixties.

Sparkle encouraged me to try it on, and I barely needed convincing.  She closed the door to the second room and I sneakily changed out of my shirt and tried the dress on.  And oh man.  It fit perfectly, and the print and sequins were just enough to make it really special, and the neckline was classic but flattering.

So I've tried on a few dozen wedding dresses, and although I looked pretty in some of them, none of them ever made me feel.... bridal.  All of those bridal shows have this whole story about how you'd cry when you put on the right dress, but I remained skeptical of this phenomenon, because big poofy beaded satin princess dresses just don't get me that worked up.

But while I was standing there in that little crowded room full of old plastic-wrapped wedding dresses and racks of giant petticoats, I looked at myself in the mirror and I could imagine standing in front of all of my friends and family in that dress on a hot August afternoon, about to marry my favorite person on the planet.  And I started feeling a little choked up.  (Sheesh, I'm getting choked up just thinking about it.)

And then I looked at the price tag.  $180.  Nope, not even that - half off $180.

My wedding dress was frigging $90, and since I decided to go to Oberlin on a whim less than a month before, it was a total fluke that I was in Ohio at all, much less the second story of that resale shop, on that day, to find it.

Long story short, I called Lumberjack to tell him that I found my wedding dress and that I was going to  probably buy it, and I put my clothes back on and marched downstairs with My Dress and I bought the shit out of it.

A little less than two weeks later, and I'm still enamored with it.  I love that it's vintage, I love that I bought it with one of my best friends from Oberlin, I love that it's non-traditional.  I love that it has a great story.  And I can't wait to wear it for real.