Monday, October 5, 2015

Like Mother, Like Daughter: My Mother's Non-Traditional Wedding Dress


Today is my mother's birthday and last week was my parents' anniversary so I thought I'd share something extra special today to honor her. She's been such a strong role model in my life, struggling with depression all her life but still managing to raise her 3 girls so well and never ever letting her battles get in the way of our happiness.

So to honor her bravery, strength, and endurance, I decided it was time to try on her wedding dress.

It's so funny to me how blue it photographed in natural light and how dark it looks in all their photos! I always believed she wore a black dress covered in florals when it was actually navy all this time!


My mother did not wear a traditional white gown and didn't have a traditional wedding. With just their parents and my mother's sister and husband as witnesses, they wed in New Hampshire at a hotel and stayed just that weekend for their honeymoon.


By the time my parents decided to get married, they already had my older sister and me. On their wedding day, my mother was pregnant with her third baby but didn't know it! It's so quirky and non-traditional and unique and I love the story of how our family came to be.


My father didn't even give her an engagement ring until the day of their wedding! We always teased them about that fact but things were different back then. I think it adds to their story and it makes her amethyst engagement ring that much more special to me. Anything with a funny story wins me over!

Here he is, the man who doesn't know the proper timing of an engagement ring...

The older I get, the more I look like my mother. It doesn't help that the larger style of glasses is coming back! Sometimes while looking in the mirror, I make a face, and immediately get freaked out because for a moment, it was like seeing a younger version of my mother.


It doesn't alarm me, though. If I look more and more like my mother as I creep closer to my 30s, I consider that a great thing. She had such a bright smile. She was truly blissfully happy when she met my father and had us girls. She always said being pregnant and becoming a mom was her favorite part of her life and she was the most happy in those years.


I am like her in the sense that I, too, dream of having a family someday. It's the one thing I have always wanted since being a little girl. Someday, I hope to have what she had - a loving husband who may not know all the right things to do (like give his fiance a ring when he proposes marriage, for example...) but provides for his family and allows me to embrace being a mom and wife.


Happy Birthday, Mom! And Happy Anniversary to my parents! They don't have a perfect marriage but they always came together at the end of each day no matter what and kept their support strong and firm. They brought up 3 amazing young women and I hope to pass on all the things they taught me to my future children.