A tale of two dresses

Well one, really. One dress, two bodies.

Most women I know long for the days when they were thin enough to fit into their wedding gowns. I am not one of those women.

Oftentimes, that's when we look our absolute best. We diet and kill ourselves to fit into this tiny, white dress so we look perfect for 24 hours and have the photographs to prove it. Then the business of actually being married sets in (kids, frantic schedules, bills, stress) and the weight is gained back and then some. This is the normal routine in most women's lives.

I started thinking about my own wedding gown a while back, as our 10th anniversary approached. We talked about possibly renewing our vows and joked about altering my gown so I could wear it on my new body.

Recently I was reading Redbook, one of my favorite magazines, and it seems they are featuring an ongoing story about women who want to fit back into their wedding gowns. It's called the Wedding Dress Challenge. The piece will follow 13 women on their quest to squeeze back into that frilly white dress. By the way, there are some great diet and exercise tips in that link - I urge you to check it out. So reading that got me to thinking: I hope I never fit into my wedding dress again!

There's a show on TLC called Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss which features plus-sized brides looking for the perfect dress. I watched several episodes of it last weekend and again found myself thinking about my own quest for the dress as what's termed a "supersize" plus-sized bride-to-be and how my gown would fit me today.

You know what happened next. I dragged it out of the closet and handed Erich a camera.

Holy shit.

So this is Erich, my brother-in-law and me 10 years ago at my wedding. We don't have very good photographs from that day, I'm sorry to say. No photographer or anything, just family snapping pics. It's my biggest regret from that day. Always, always hire a photographer. Borrow the money if you have to (click to enlarge).



And this is that same dress on me, last night:





The first thing that struck me was how long it was. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up. So yeah. I hope I never, ever fit into that dress again. It must also be said that I had it custom made, so it fit me well at the time. I mean, there was no way I could go into a bridal salon and pick out a dress; it just wasn't going to happen. When I was watching Big Bliss, there was one bride who was bigger than a size 32 and they just didn't know what the hell to do because that's where the sizes stopped. I would've been screwed as well and I knew it. I never set foot inside a dress shop, I had one made for me. Crazy, huh?

Seriously, if I can do this you can, too. You can. You are stronger than you think you are!