Here Comes My Frock

Today is my sixth wedding anniversary. To celebrate, I'm tagging myself (again, how sad...) in the 'Here comes my frock' meme, which was doing the rounds a little while ago.

My wedding dress actually turned out not to be the dress of my dreams until my actual wedding day. Never has one dress caused one woman quite as much anguish as that dress caused me! But, on the day, it was the perfect dress. At least it was once I'd worked out the best way to stand in it, which unfortunately was after we had all the photos taken in the gardens...

I bought my dress from Berketex Bride. A very lovely lady, who also turned out to be a very good saleswoman, helped me choose. I knew I wanted something completely plain (sadly for my mum who had something much more glitzy in mind!) and I knew I wanted strapless but I had been leaning toward a fuller, floaty skirt until I tried on my Lucy Lin corset and fishtail.

Now, I am tall and thin. I have no curves whatsoever and this particular saleswoman pinned me into this dress in such a way that, to my mind at least, I looked liked Jessica Rabbit. How could I say no?

Doubts started creeping in after I went to try it on the second time and different lady was there to help me. But I stuck resolutely to that vision of curves and went ahead with it. It was during one of my fittings that the seamstress broke it to me - the way it had been pinned during that initial visit wasn't quite how it would actually look. She did her best anyway, advised me to avoid any kind of control underwear, and sewed a whole load of padding into the corset for which I was very grateful!

After my final fitting, I picked it up, got on the train home, called my husband-to-be and sobbed down the phone about how much I hated my dress.

Roll on a week and after a rather disastrous morning involving torrential rain, a bus crash, a closed road and missing taxis, I put on this much-agonised-over dress and felt transformed.

I really did feel like a million dollars on the day and I look back at (most) of my photos and am delighted with my dress. It was simple and elegant and classic. And while sometimes I am still sorry that I passed up the chance to wear the dream princessy gown, I know that the one I went for was much more 'me' and that must count for something!

So, here it is. Although I'm sitting down, I think this picture shows it off at its best (please excuse the slightly fixed grin on my face - what is known in my family as a 'plastic smile'!):




And here it is with my veil - referred to by my mother as the 'longest veil in Christendom'. Well I wasn't going to completely pass up on the chance for a bit of froth and frills....

(*the second photo was taken by our wonderful photographer Alison Purvis-Gisborne)