I hope I can tell this story to my daughter or future daughter-in-law one day...it goes a little something like this...
ME: Did I ever tell you about the day that I received my wedding gown?
HER: No
***sidebar*** of course she'll say "no" because I'll be waiting for the perfect opportunity to tell this story. I've committed to keeping it quiet for the next 20 years.
ME: Well, in the weeks leading up to my wedding, I'd been fighting a sense of insecurity. It's just that I've been to a lot of really fabulous weddings. Weddings with open bars, gourmet food, prestigious chapels, popular djs...everything. Because of this I had imagined that my wedding would follow suit - even though I'd made a habit of rolling my eyes nearly everytime I received a save the date or invitation. But when my turn finally came, finding a dress was a big deal. It is for everyone, really. But somehow this turned into a mini-Soap Opera. I ordered it from J. Crew on a Friday - it was delivered to my office the following Wednesday.
***shocked look from daughter***
Yeah...I guess they're just really effecient. Anyway, I had it shipped to my office so there wouldn't be any hiccups at my apartment. For some reason I didn't trust the mail system in my Brooklyn neighborhood and I just didn't want to risk it.
HER: You lived in New York?
ME: Yes, but that's another story. Ok, so...the package arrived and suddenly, but inevitably, a bundle of nerves gathered in my stomach. I grabbed a pair of scissors, marched into the kitchen and hurriedly opened the box (which, to the unknowing delivery man may have contained a cardigan or a pair of flats). As I looked into the faces of my co-workers, a tidal wave of emotion swept over me - they were unimpressed and under-whelmed. One commented "It's just so...plain..." another said "One thing's for sure - your boobs will look great!"
HER shocked: What?
ME: Yeah...not quite the reaction I was going for and certainly not the circumstance in which I was hoping to reveal my wedding dress. I guess in my mind I had imagined having it delivered to my apartment on a Saturday, calling my mom, sister and best girlfriends and demanding their presence - one would even bring champagne. I'd emerge from my room to an intimate audience and everyone would oohh and ahhhh. They would compliment the dress and my mother, with tears in her eyes, would say "That. Is. The. Perfect. Dress.". Maybe we'd go to dinner or lunch afterward - it would be a wonderful day. But instead I got blank stares and at the end of the day, when the office janitor came, he reached under my desk, shook the box and asked if it was trash.
HER grimacing: Ouch...
ME shrugging: I left the office, got on the train, got home, tried it on, hung it up and committed to losing a few more pounds.
HER sympathetically: Awwww...
ME: Yes...I say all this to say I pray that other weddings and wedding preparations have not tainted your image of what a wedding is supposed to be. Just honor the Lord in it all and everything will be lovely - besides that, no one is going to tell you that you look bad at your wedding. At least not to your face...
2 comments:
Let me tell you how much you'll care about the look on those faces the day you become Mrs. Bowei....zero!!! Believe it or not, the wedding dress was one of the very last things on my mind on Feb 5, 2005.
I loved my wedding dress, but it under-whelmed some. The most important thing to do with the dress is that you see yourself as the glowing, white bride that Jesus makes you from the inside out. If your dress emulates that image in your mind, wear it and love it!!! No matter what.
A. I miss you so much right now and I really really really just want to hug your neck and kiss your cheek and tell you how much I love you.
B. I love this story...because I'm confident that at the end of it you will be able to add on that regardless of whatever lack luster feelings may have been felt on that Wednesday and maybe even the days leading up to May 24, 2009 that on that day, your day, you were blown away by God's kept promise to go exceedingly and abundantly beyond what you can imagine...and you'll have so many other subsequent stories of His faithfulness to tell in those perfect moments to girlfriends and grandbabies and aunties and nephews and nieces and even total strangers...and it'll be so sweet.
C. I love you. I wanted to tell you that again. :)
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