A Wedding Dress with No Wedding

The dress that is THE dress I wanted years ago,
at Handmade Bride right now.

So I’m officially divorced now. Well, as of New Year’s eve, I was. Everything is amicable now, and it all went smoothly, and I even exchanged gifts with The Boy (my ex) over Christmas. Like, it’s all done—even the crying.

And then I go check on The Handmade Bride, the local bridal boutique I have a crush on…because I’m a sucker for punishment, I guess. Because I ended up hating my own dress, I guess. Because she offers everything handmade and I love that, and her dresses are modern and adorable and can be custom-done to your taste or look or price tag.

And yeah…it’s killing me. Because every dress I see on there is prettier than the last. So today she posted a picture of a lace dress with a keyhole back and this blush underlay, and I realized, this is THE dress I was looking for when I got married, but I couldn’t find it. There it is, and me with no intention of heading down an aisle ever again.

Is there any reason why a grown woman would buy herself a wedding dress without a wedding to wear it to? Could I write this off as a psychiatric expense? Because I’m pretty sure buying this dress would work better than the same dollar value of Xanax, Prozac, or Celexa combined. I have nowhere to wear it, which is of course a bit of a hiccup; I suspect that wearing it while doing errands would probably result in me being locked up in a psych ward somewhere, which means the purpose would be defeated. The dress would not scratch this emotional itch I have. Right?

Another kickass dress at The Handmade Bride.
Buy all the dresses!

Honestly, I think maybe this is my subconscious sharing its terror that I may truly never be married again. My conscious is okay with this decision—it was truly a conscious decision. But my subconscious has this vision of walking down a pathway and starting off a lifelong partnership with one day full of perfect, ephemeral beauty. Like maybe if you start your journey off with a bang, the inevitable slow decline won’t actually dip below sea level.

I’m not sure if you’re following all of that. Just…keep up if you can. Owning one more wedding dress somehow feels like I’m shouting at the world, “Okay, fine! I won’t get married again! But not getting married doesn’t mean I don’t get to have one more day looking transcendentally beautiful!” I feel like getting myself a dress is my way of saying, I don’t need to get married to be worthy of something this grand. Because when else is a woman ever told she’s worth something as elaborate and grand as a wedding?

There’s no wrap-up on this post. I’m turning off the computer and stepping away from the wedding dress photos before I end up on Pinterest and all hell breaks loose.