My Wedding Dress

The dress that every girl dreams of for that momentous occasion once in her life. The dress she dresses her Barbie’s in and plays 'wedding' with her Ken doll.  That dress has now been donated to an organization that will give that dress to women who are well deserving.  That dress will now make some other bride-to-be happy.

I remember the day at David’s Bridal, sifting through the racks, knowing in my head exactly what I wanted which they didn’t have so I settled.  I settled for a dress that spoke to me after I put it on and looked in the mirror.  If I remember correctly it was the third one I put on.  It was nice, my Mom loved it.  It had white beading on the front, and a detail along the bottom, very princess like, sans the crinoline please.   And so it went, the fittings because obviously the dress wasn’t fitting me right in any curve (I think that’s how they get you to spend money on their services).  The shoe shopping, the hair sessions, and of course the pre-makeup session.  All for about 6 hours of my life that I briefly remember.  Yet I’d do it all again, differently, and definitely a different style dress.

A few months after the wedding, like every other bride, I had the dress preserved (professionally cleaned and placed in a box, which is pretty pricey), it has remained in that box for 10 years.  Now what? Well honestly it was taking up space in my basement, I had no further use for it and I sure wasn’t going to wear it again.  Even if I ever had a girl I wouldn’t let her take a picture in it because well, to be honest it’s not her dress.  Those pictures look ridiculous anyway.  Heck, I spent good money on it to get it professionally cleaned, I am NOT taking it out of the box for a ½ hour photo session.  I even thought of having a ‘recycled wedding dress’ party, but then again, do we really want to daunt the dress for an evening?  Probably not. 

What do I do with this? I thought of donating it to Salvation Army, but after doing some research online I found a non-profit organization that grants weddings and renewals to couples facing terminal illness and serious life-altering situations.  And they accept wedding gowns as donations.  Bingo! I finally decided to mail the entire box, unopened, rather then take it out of the box and donate money for them to have it cleaned – again.  The trip to the post office was a hoot, the man at the counter told me how much this was going to cost (in walks a female customer behind me).  “That’s fine, its my wedding dress and I’m donating it so it’s a write off” I said in reply, hoping the woman behind me heard me for some odd reason I have yet to determine.  Then he said it was going to cost a bit more for weight, “That’s fine, again, it’s a total write-off” I replied with a smile and a chuckle, (deep inside I was laughing).  As I paid the man and he handed me my receipt, I knew inside I was doing a good thing.  To me at this point in my life it was just a dress, to someone else, it was granting a wish.