The Search for the Perfect Dress

It was approximately a year ago that Mandy, my mom-in-love, and I went shopping for a wedding dress for me. I had already been to David's Bridal twice, and while I found some dresses that I liked well enough, I hadn't really found the dress that made me feel like a million bucks. I was doing tons of research online and was having a hard time finding a dress that was simple yet beautiful. Then I happened upon the Watters & Watters website and fell in love with this dress:



The above picture was not the original picture I saw. The picture I saw showed the dress from behind, but it didn't show the front. I did some searching and found a picture of the front of the dress on eBay. It looked so low cut that I figured it wouldn't work out. I had saved it to my favorites on the website, but I moved on and found some other dresses that I loved.

I had 2 particular Watters styles in mind when the 3 of us drove out to Jaclyn's Bridal in Orange County. I tried on both and liked both of them but neither of them aroused any major feelings in me. I started browsing through the racks, accidentally found my first Watters favorite, and tried it on. I loved it. I wouldn't say the world stopped spinning, but I did feel beautiful when I put it on. The only way I could express my feelings was to say, "I like this."

And that is how I ended up with my beautiful wedding dress. Looking back on it, I am so incredibly glad that I didn't buy any of the dresses that I bought at David's Bridal. I am also glad that I didn't let my judgment about the dress being low cut keep me from trying it on. My wedding dress was so me that it felt like it was made for me. While it was low cut, it gave me some nice wedding cleavage.

I was just thinking about the Great Dress Hunt of 2006 earlier and realized that a whole year had gone by since I found my dress. Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss being a bride.



My dress is still hanging up in the closet, still dirty from the wedding day. I have no idea what to do with it. Sometimes I want to put it on again. Sometimes I want to do a trash the dress session. One thing I can't bear to do is to just have it cleaned and preserved and stuck in a box. I don't want to put my wedding dress to rest. It feels a little like a funeral to do that to a wedding dress. I don't want my dress or its memories to ever die.