THE Dress.

I love my wedding dress, as I'm sure every bride does. In fact, I love everything about my wedding outfit - the dress, the shoes, the headdress. Even my pants, which were a matching shade of pink (but that only my mum and Mr B saw! And, before you ask, my mum got me dressed, and helped me pee all day - that's how come she saw them!)

I was lucky enough to get to wear my outfit twice, because we had our wedding reception 2 weeks after we actually got married.

I loved every minute I was in that dress - from the first second it went over my head, I knew it was THE Dress. The fact that my mum started crying when she saw me in it was confirmation enough for me. I really did feel like a princess. It's probably the only time in my life when I've felt beautiful, too. It's not often  I look in the mirror and feel good about the reflection looking back at me. And it's certainly a rare occassion that I see pictures of myself and am happy with them.

Mr B and I have been married for about 18 months now, and I still haven't had my wedding dress cleaned. I wanted to wear it just one more time before I got it cleaned and packed it away, so it has hung, waiting to be worn, on the spare room door for 18 months. I look at it every day, touch it, and reminice a little bit.

In the run up to the wedding, I was totally obsessed with fitting in The Dress - I went to the gym, I went to aerobics, I stuck to my diet. I lost 12 inches in 13 weeks so that The Dress had to be taken in on my final fitting.
Trouble is, my dedication to fitting in The Dress sort of waned once I'd got married. If I'm honest, it didn't fit quite the same at the party as it did when I wore it to walk down the aisle, and that was only two weeks later.

So, by the time my birthday came 4 months after the wedding, The Dress wouldn't do up at all. I decided that I'd lose enough weight to be able to wear it again on our wedding anniversary, 8 months later. When our anniversary came round, I didn't even bother getting The Dress off the hanger to try it on, because I knew it would be pointless.

But, still The Dress hung on the door, waiting to be worn. Until today.
Today, Mr B and I packed The Dress away. It's carefully packaged up, and hidden in a wardrobe. I gave it a little squirt of Wedding Day Perfume (Gucci II, if you're interested), and tucked it in, with a little tear in my eye.

I still haven't had it cleaned, though, because I will wear The Dress again. I will find that dedication, that drive, and that motivation, and I will sort my diet out, get to the gym, lose the inches, and fit in the dress.