Rarely Sentimental

Nathan and I got married about 3.5 years ago and were engaged for a little over a year. That was a hard year - engagement. It's such a strange life stage.  Limbo between belonging to yourself or parents and belonging to your husband. I so badly wanted to get the ball rolling on wedding plans (even though we didn't even have a date at this point) that I bought a dress maybe about a month after we were engaged. 

I liked the dress. I never expected to have the "this is the one" experience when looking for it. I wanted something that would be simple and flattering, timeless, and "me". I think that first dress I bought was all of those things except the "me" part. And because of that it ended up residing in a closet at my parents house pretty much since I bought it. 

Thus, I just put it on craigslist, where I think prom and wedding dresses go to die. I doubt it will do much there, I think we'd sell it for $50 just to get rid of it. So we'll see. But thinking about selling a wedding dress makes me think of the one that I did wear.

And what to do with it. 

Could I ever actually get rid of my wedding dress? At what cost? What is it actually worth to me? I wore it on the best day I've ever had. The day that brought on the biggest change I'll ever experience. The day I anticipated, laughed about, cried over, and dreamed of. I still want to do one of those 5 years later and we still look awesome photo shoots (aka "trash the dress").

 

The veil that extended just perfectly past my train. The veil that whipped in the breeze. The veil I had to hold down with one hand while standing at the alter to keep it from flying into my dad. And the hair clips. After searching for weeks to find the perfect hair piece, and finding them the night before my portraits. The bright white lilies that contrasted with my dark hair and made me feel elegant.

The shoes...wait...I don't actually know where the shoes are...