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How a $42 Wedding Dress Helped Me Heal Old Wounds
I knew I had trauma to work through. I’m pretty sure that’s just a part of being human and living life; we accumulate big and little traumas, and they affect us to varying degrees depending on how we handle them (or don’t). It wasn’t until I was preparing to marry my partner — a second-chance romance — that I realized just how deeply that trauma had burrowed into me.
Soon after we got engaged, my dear friend Nina offered to throw us an engagement party. I hugged her and thanked her for the offer, but I declined, not wanting to make a fuss. I told myself it was about practicality. I told myself that my circle these days is too small to warrant a hullabaloo. I told myself that I didn’t need one, since I’d had an engagement party the first time I was engaged in my 20s.
Weddings are notoriously expensive, and I didn’t want to blow a year’s salary on a single day. (Did you know that the US average spent on a wedding is $35,000 per couple?) My partner and I agreed we’d rather save money for a house than spend it all on a single day’s celebration. We set a (very) small budget and I got started making spreadsheets of ideas and what it would cost to implement. We decided upon an intimate ceremony in the woods — no bridal party, no flowers, no photographer, no dinner, and no dancing. It would be simple, relaxed, and easy, we imagined. But the…
