Another Spin Down The Aisle

I'm not sure what made me revisit my wedding dress last month. I was sitting in a coffee shop, wrestling with the Remara and the Book Thief arc. I'd gotten a decent chunk written, so my mind was seeking an excuse to exit. What I really wanted was a good old-fashioned distraction.

What turned up in my mind was the back of my closet. Something precious was stored there... but why?

In my mind's eye, I pulled my shirts and dresses down the closet bar and removed my wedding dress from the very back of the closet. It has been hanging there for almost five years.

It's beautiful. An absolute work of art.

I paused, a nagging question bubbling up next to the image. But why am I keeping this?

I was still one or two years away from planning my own wedding when a young artist named Taylor Ann went viral for hand-dying her own wedding dress. Before this moment, there was no fixed vision laid down for any potential wedding ceremony I might have. I'm not one of the ladies who has been dreaming of my nuptials since childhood. Indeed, it had only recently come to mind that it might be good to start thinking through some of the details. Yet, as these images crossed my dashboard on Tumblr, something in my heart begged, "Me too. I want to bring all the colors to my wedding, too."

A couple of years later, as I began to piece together a wedding in earnest, I contacted Taylor Ann on the off-chance that she was helping others with their dresses. It turned out that she had used the intervening time to establish a custom coloration business where a person would ship her the (already altered) wedding dress and she would color it for them. I was fortunate and deeply grateful to work with her, and she designed me a gorgeous sunset color scheme that worked beautifully with the cut of the dress.

I was able to keep the coloration of the dress a secret from Sergey until I walked down the aisle. His reaction, and the day, was everything I'd hoped for. I danced with my husband wearing all the colors of sunrise and sunset.

That momentous day flew by all too quickly. The dress was respectfully hung in its David's Bridal shroud at the back of the closet for five years. At one point, I off-handedly asked a frame shop what it would cost to frame something like this wedding dress. The idea was quickly abandoned once I heard the initial quote.

So there I sat in the coffee shop, wondering why I was still holding onto the dress.

After all, I'm not going to have a child to give it to.

Well... my sisters might want it.

Hah. My sisters are their own people, and while they loved the dress, I doubt they would want to dance in my shoes. I predict they would each craft their own unique statements for such a time, not take on mine. Still, I was uneasy with the idea that I'd never explicitly asked them, so I went to each in turn and asked: Do you want my wedding dress?

Both expressed gratitude at being asked, but declined for the reasons that I guessed they would. Still, I felt more at ease that I had checked.

I might want to wear it again if Sergey and I have a recommitment ceremony or some future renewal of vows.

First, where do I get off predicting what I'll want to wear in forty years, much less what I'll be ABLE to wear by then? Or predicting that we'll even want such a ceremony? Perhaps we will be perfectly happy to continue being in each others' company without an elaborate demonstration to mark the occasion. Perhaps, if we do want to mark the occasion, I'll want to wear something that demonstrates who I've become at that point, and not who I used to be. Hanging onto my initial wedding dress because of this marginally possible situation didn't make sense.

It... it's... it's sentimentally valuable.

Ah. Now we drill down to the truth. It meant a lot to me, and therefore I was unwilling to part with it, even though it was doing absolutely nothing in the back of my closet.

A bit like a dragon hoard.

Idly, I switched away from writing stories about dragons and their hoards and began googling how one would go about donating a dress.

As it turns out, many organizations take wedding dresses for resale, which pays-it-forward in two ways: brides-to-be get a dress at markedly less expense than a new gown, and the non-profit organization receives funds from the sale. After checking through the options, I landed on Adorned In Grace, a wedding dress boutique that fights sex trafficking and helps survivors. I also learned that most second-hand boutiques will not accept dresses that are more than five years old, an age my dress was rapidly approaching.

Timely, eh wot?

I discussed the situation with Sergey to be sure I was not acting impulsively, but donating the dress made too much sense. The fact that it wrenched me to let go didn't make the decision any less correct.

My first step was to get the dress cleaned. However, due to the way it had been colored, dry-cleaning was not an option. So, I contacted Taylor Ann for the second time. By this time, she no longer accepted custom work and, instead, booted up a boutique called Canvas Bridal that flips and upcycles wedding dresses, selling the finished product as-is. I pitched her the idea that I wanted to donate the dress and requested her services to clean the dress and then ship it to its final destination. Her response sounded delighted, so we negotiated the cleaning fee, and I went to work packing up the dress.

Well. Not right away. I had to slip into it one last time and think about what I was doing. As I did, I found that none of my reasons had changed. The dress was too lovely to sit at the back of my closet forever.

It deserves another spin down the aisle.

I vacuum sealed the dress, boxed it, and shipped it off. Taylor Ann diligently kept me apprised of the gown's arrival, cleaning, and when it shipped back out. Just yesterday, Adorned In Grace notified me that the dress arrived at their Arizona location, to much celebration.

Letting go was difficult, but I have no regrets. Now it will serve another bride who wants to bring every color into her marriage, and she will get to dance in the colors of sunrise and sunset.

Here's to one more spin down the aisle.