The dress

 

 22 years ago -- yesterday -- April 27, 1991 -- five years to the day after we met.
Seems like a lifetime ago, seems like just yesterday.

I made this photo my Facebook profile picture yesterday, just for the fun of it. IT is my favorite of all of our weddings pictures. Very *us*, very casual, outside in the sun. In the process of the comments, we got to talking about my dress and a wonderful memory came flooding back to me.

I then sat back and thought about it.

In this day and age, *this* blog is where I dump my thoughts my diary so to speak.
This is where I tell our stories.

This is where my grandchildren will read about their parents' lives as children, and my stories.
They will probably be saying things like, "can you believe Grandma actuall had to type!?"

They may also say, "why on earth did she think that was important?" -- but here goes.
Someday, they may want to alter the dress and wear it for their wedding. One never knows!
If I don't tell the story here, it won't get told.

First, chuckle if you may, the dress was the epitome of fashion in the late 80's and early 90's. The age of *big* - big hair, shoulder pads, poofy things...the bigger the sleeves the better, and the sheer high neckline was on everyone's wish list. It also had the most beautiful beaded lace at the ends of the sleeves, around the shoulders, and bottom of the dress and along the train. You can also take note of my curled up bang poof and Sir Fartsalot mullet.

My girlfriend Jackie and I had stopped at Anne Bailey's Bridal during spring break my senior year in school. (Now you know why we were together 5 years before we got married. Four  years of college and a year to work. Yes, we made sure we could AFFORD the wedding....I know, we were rebels!)  I, of course, had torn all of the pictures from magazines, and made my wish list, presented it to the bridal clerk and she went in search of *the* dress.

And she found it.
The first one I tried on, the one I wanted.
The most awesome part is that she checked the pricing twice because she thought there is no way the price tag was correct. $800. (who knows what my grandchildren will say about that price, but then, it was a STEAL with all that beading and lace) Teh average price of such a dress at the time was $1500 or so. I put down the deposit and ran out of there before they could come tell me there was a mistake. Thankfully, my mom was not to upset only cried a little to not have been included in the process. Jackie and I never expected to find anything, we were just hanging out and decided on a whim to try some things on. Mom did come for one fitting, but I lived in Conshohocken at the time, and the dress shoppe was in Doylestown, so it was crazy for her to try to be there for each fitting.

Fast forward to *the* day.
The dress hanging on the curtain rod in my mom's bedroom because that was the only place high enough to hang it that the train could hang.
All of my bridesmaids at the house getting dressed and made  up.
My mom lived in a row of townhouses. Each was not huge, but enough for the two of them. The front door was at the bottom of the stairs. The stairs led up to my mom's bedroom and bathroom, all that was on the second floor.  My mom always, and mean ALWAYS, had a wreath or decoration hanging on that door. Changed with the season and holiday. ALWAYS. Just like she ALWAYS had her seasonal decorations inside. (That will have to be another blog post as well).  I often think to myself how remiss she would be of my lack of attention to decor on my front door. I am lucky if I remember at Christmas. But anyway, I digress....which is usually the problem when I start writing....

The front door, however, did not have a screen door.

Often, since they did not routinely use that door,
there was a bird that decided to make the decor on her front door into a home.

You can see where I am going here?

The innocent flower delivery man came to the door with our flowers. In the hustle and bustle, the mama bird got caught off gaurd IN the nest, when the door was opened.

The door opened INWARD.

So, she flew out.

And straight up the stairs.

To my mom's room at the top of the stairs.

Straight to the shoulder of my dress.

Yes, ON the dress.

All I can really recall is hearing my  mom yell, "Do NOT scare that bird! It'll sh*t on the dress!"

I can not remember how we did it, other than that there was a pretty crazy few minutes of shooing,dress grabbing and door slamming. We did manage to get the bird out of the house, with no damage to the dress and.....

There was much debate later about whether this was a good omen, or bad omen etc etc, if you believe in that sort of thing. Much akin to the "rain keeps the bad spirits away" , which is nothing more than a way to make a bride feel better about rain on her wedding day.

Looking back after 22 years of marriage, ups and downs, struggles and joys, growing together and apart, surviving raising teenagers, and aging parents, I can say we have made our own way. With our faith and willingness to work together, I can safely say, that little bird gave us nothing more than a funny story to tell 20 years later.