Dear Mom e-Letter
Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Volume 2, Issue 6
The Mother of the Bride Dress
April 2007

Dear Reader,

For the second time in my life, I will be the MOB—mother of the bride—which means I need a dress. That’s stressful, because I hate shopping.

Shopping is disguised torture. You try on clothes that don’t look very good on you until you find clothes that do. And then you’re supposed to believe that the “value” of the item exceeds the “cost,” making it a deal, regardless of the impact to your bank account.

I am cheap. Don’t believe me? Just ask my daughter, the bride, whose stress over how I will look at her wedding resulted in a mother-daughter shopping trip in April.

I tried on every dress Kelsey brought me, and when I tired of every bulge showing and the appearance of bulges I didn’t even know I had, I was done. As we left the fitting room, I was surprised to see an aqua blue dress, a color I hadn’t seen on clothes in a long time. I told my daughters it was the same color as our farm house that was destroyed by fire when I was 15.

Two days later, near the farm where I grew up, my sister delighted us with Mom’s traditional Easter dessert—a family favorite called Calla Lilies. Gayle and I talked about how Mom made them—sweet dough shaped like Calla Lilies and stuffed with whipped cream—which led us to sharing memories of Mom baking in the farm house that was destroyed by fire. I told Gayle about shopping for my MOB dress and seeing the aqua blue dress. Suddenly, she interrupted me, saying she had something I would really love.

I did. It was Mom’s mother of the bride dress from my wedding. Floor length, long sleeve, aqua blue—one of Mom’s favorite colors. I have very few pictures of mom and me, but I have a wedding photo of me in my dress, Mom in her aqua blue dress, and Dad in a tux.

I was 20 in 1976. Young and in love. I didn’t realize until after Mom died in 1990 that we were married and had kids at the exact same age. I really like aqua blue, and to this day, I think of Mom every time I see it. We really do become our mothers, don’t we?

Do you remember the dress your mom wore to your wedding? Did you shop with her for her dress? Do you have a favorite photo of the two of you from your big day?

I know it’s only a dress. But since I don’t have one yet, and the wedding is a month away, maybe I should tell Kelsey I have a dress and just let her guess whether I have really become my mother after all.

Thanks for sharing the journey!

Dee Dee