Last fall when Haig got home from his mission and we started talking about getting married, one of the first things on my mind was a dress. My dress would need to be modest and have sleeves on it that covered my shoulders. I was very worried about what I was going to do. My mom and I went to a couple of bridal stores right away and looked at some dresses, but of course anything I looked at was going to have to be modified to cover me. I was a little upset but I remained hopeful. By thanksgiving, I had decided that Haig's mother would make my wedding dress and also another special dress for me to wear inside the temple for our marriage ceremony and sealing. We picked out material and patterns for the temple dress because I would need that for my first time going to the temple in December. I knew that eventually we would pick out material for a wedding dress and some how I would find the vintage lace that I had been looking for.
Later on in October, I felt like I needed to go to Value Village to have a look around. It was pretty close to Halloween, and I really wasn't in the mood to go in, but I told myself that I would just avoid the Halloween section. I started to look at some house stuff first, but I was quickly distracted by the thought of going to look at dresses. I started at the end of the aisle with the formal and wedding dresses. Of course, most of them look like they are from the early 90's but I hoped I would find something I liked. There was no luck in the section so I started to walk up the dress aisle to get to the smaller section to look at some more casual dresses. On my walk up I saw something.
It was a beautiful lace wedding dress. I was floored. I had not walked too far, I was in the large section, I moved some of the other dresses out of the way so I could get a better look. It had long lace sleeves and a scoop neckline with beading, sequins and a beautiful scallop bottom. I followed my first instinct and looked around to make sure no one saw how dumb founded I probably looked in that moment. I inspected the dress some more (and also realized that it was probably on the floor for Halloween purposes and accidently got put back in the dress section... ), and then I laid it in the little red push cart. I walked to the dressing room, and I will admit I was a little embarrassed. A girl was working at the dressing room just ignored the fact that I had a wedding dress (again, probably thought it was going to be a Halloween costume), and showed me a room to go into. I was still pretty nervous that someone was going to see my feet and notice that I was trying on a wedding dress, but I did what I had to do.
Once I had the dress on, I was again shocked. It was too big of course, but the dress was gorgeous so I didn't even care. I kept looking at the dress more and more to see if anything was wrong with it. The only thing I could find was some discolor on the neckline in the back, but other than that it was a vintage lace wedding dress. I was amazed that there was no tag on the dress which indicated to me that it was home made. I fell more in love with it at this realization.
Last but not least, I nearly cried when I read the price tag.
The dress was $9.99.
I knew I was going to buy the dress at this point and I was not in the mood to walk around the store with it, so I quickly got dressed and took the dress up to the cash. The cashier's reaction was similar to the girl at the dressing room. At that time of year she was not so shocked to see someone buying an old wedding dress, until I said the words "this is going to be my wedding dress", then she kind of looked at me like I had three heads and we stopped talking. She put the transaction through and I thanked her and made my way out of the store.
I sent the first text to Haig, and then my mom, sister and Casey. While I was driving home I was in shock that I had just bought my wedding dress for $11.39 (taxes). Obviously there was work to be done, but I was none the less excited about the purchase. I tried it on again as soon as I got home.
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