betcha can't guess what i wore on my head

tonight i stumbled across the show "say yes to the dress" which, in case you don't know, is a reality show where they film women coming into a bridal shop with their family and friends & trying to find the perfect wedding gown. there's lots of drama and a whole lot of white fluff.

it made me think back to 13 years ago when i was planning my wedding. chris was in school and working as many hours as he could, so we didn't see very much of each other. i'd moved back home to save money, so i was spending a lot of time with my mom as we worked through all the arrangements. i never wanted to have a big wedding. i wasn't a girl who dreamed of it all her life. i'd always sort of thought that i'd run off & elope one day, but i was talked into having a wedding after all.

i did NOT want a big, fluffy dress. i didn't want beads, sequins, sparkles or glitz. i didn't want to go totally hillbilly & get married in denim either. i wanted something simple and smallish that i could afford to pay for myself. my parents paid for the wedding stuff, but i wanted to pay for anything i wore on my body, so it needed to be reasonably priced.

it was hard to find just the right dress in any of the bridal shops because they were all too fancy for me, but i finally found one in a department store. actually, it was in the prom section, but whatever. it was long & white & had a small train, so i can't imagine anyone wearing it for a prom.

once the dress was decided upon, i needed to figure out what to do on my head. hair up or down? veil? tiara? nothing? these are important decisions when you'll be looking at the pictures of that moment for the rest of your life. we looked at a lot of different veils and headpieces, but i wasn't really sure i even wanted one and they cost between $60 and $200 bucks. my mom is very crafty and has done a lot of sewing, so she convinced me that we should consider making our own veil.

we found a portion of veily material at michaels craft store. it was longer than i'd thought i would like, but seemed pretty enough. however, it still needed to be attached to something. we bought a string of fake pearls & took our goodies home to play with them & see if we could make something good enough to wear down the aisle.

we cut a piece of cardboard into a sort of long, ovalish shape, figuring we could hook the veil onto the bottom of it. we cut a piece of lining out of one of my little sisters' dress-up dresses that was white & silky to cover the cardboard. we thought we'd string the little pearls around the outer edge to make it look prettier, but it still needed something to make the cardboard piece thicker & look less like a silk covered slice of cardboard.

we thought about it & tried a few things & then suddenly, there was a light bulb moment. that piece of cardboard was exactly the same size and shape as a maxi-pad! mom ran for the nearest box of pads & while the 2 of us laughed ourselves into pants-piddling hysteria, we wrapped that hunk of cardboard with a couple of pads. it was totally convenient, they were already sticky on the one side, ready to stick right down and stay in place. flexible, with wings! we wrapped them in the strip of chopped out and ironed dress-up silk and then hot glued it all in place. we sewed the pearls around the edge and when it was done, no one would have ever known that i was walking down the aisle to marry my beloved with a couple of maxi-pads stuck on my head.

and i've got to be honest, this is one of the best memories i have of my wedding. i can't even think of it without getting a fresh giggle.