The sensible thing would be a quick ceremony at City Hall, wearing whatever we had on at the time—or eloping somewhere and skipping all the wedding stuff. But at our age, why be sensible?

I had never been married, and Mark has a fairly large family nearby, so we decided to have the whole white wedding thing. Before anyone throws shade at a 60-year-old bride wearing white, in my defense, it was slightly cream-colored. So there.

It wasn’t easy finding a wedding dress. I once ventured into a bridal shop, and the clerk directed me to the grandmother section. I saw a lot of lime green, boxy chiffon dresses and all I could think was nooooo. I must have grimaced a little, because she quickly pointed to the Mother of the Bride section. Yahoo! A step up! 

I explained that I was the bride, and getting married for the first time. She stared at me, stunned like a deer in headlights, giggled, and said, “That’s so cute!”

Ugh.

She walked me over to a gigantic row of white dresses. A couple of young whipper-snapper brides looked at me like I had two heads, moved quickly out of my way, and ran off giggling. I had the racks all to myself and my dress choices of poofy (I would look like a marshmallow), mermaid (ridiculous and no way I could walk), or pageant (too many sparkles). And they were all so heavy!

I decided online shopping might be less stressful…and embarrassing. Being a generally frugal (ok, stingy) person, I opted for some online retailers with unpronounceable names, where you take your measurements and they send you a custom-made dress, shipped out within a few days. Magic!

It was a beautiful dress, but not quite as I imagined. Apparently, I either didn’t measure properly or grew a couple of extra ribs because that gorgeous dress was very tight around the waist. It had boning like a corset from Gone with the Wind, and I could picture Mammy yanking the lacing tight after Scarlett sassed her and kept eating biscuits. The entire top was covered in sequins, but they weren’t sewn on very well, so some of them stuck out a bit. It was very scratchy under my arms. The only way I could wear it was if I held my breath all night and kept my arms straight out as if I were about to fly away.

Being extremely stressed from planning my first and only wedding in just a few weeks and marrying a man I had met only five months earlier, I had lost some weight and was feeling pretty cute. I ordered a dress that was short, lacy, and called ‘body con.’ I didn’t know what that meant, but when the dress arrived, I realized it meant body-conscious. I really didn’t want to be that aware of my body and definitely didn’t want anyone else to be either.

And mercy. Gravity hit my body a little too hard to wear something that requires you to slither like a snake to get into. Not enough Spanx on the planet to smooth all that.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

I had a friend in high school who wore very tight jeans. She was slender and said she had to wear them that way because the material stretched throughout the day. At least, that’s what she told her parents. Her jeans were so tight she had to thread a wire coat hanger through the small hole on the zipper tab to pull them up. If I had to do that now, I’d pop myself in the chin.

The second dress I ordered had a low back and a zipper. I have flashbacks of trying to pull up that straining zipper (but not with a hanger) and having my back fat make a very unflattering smoosh line. No. Just no. (Older folks, even slender ones, have some loose skin, and it ain’t purdy.)

My then-fiancé Mark, a musician with a great ear but zero focus on lyrics, picked all our wedding music, including the first dance. He chose “New Orleans Ladies,” which has some questionable lyrics about sassy Creole ladies sashaying down Bourbon Street. Not exactly Karen Carpenter’s “We’ve Only Just Begun,” but I went with it. As said on American Bandstand back in the day, it has a good beat and you can dance to it.

I realized all I needed was a semi-modest dress that wasn’t pure white so as not to offend pearl-clutchers, comfortable enough for dancing to a song about ladies of the evening, and made of a thicker material to hide aging figure flaws. No problem, right? But I was running out of time and getting too desperate to try online sketchy, aka cheap, again.

I went online again and reluctantly increased my budget, overriding my natural frugality. It was my first and only wedding, after all. I found my dress at a store I fondly call Needless MarkUp for more than I had paid for an entire outfit, but it featured a sassy New Orleans ruffle and a not-too-high thigh slit for dancing. I called back to my penny-pinching instincts and went to eBay to see if I could get a better deal. Success! I found the same dress, brand new with tags, in my size, for half price! I briefly considered leaving the tag on or dangling it from my bridal bouquet for bragging rights. I mean, a deal is a deal, right?

In my excitement, I missed the return window for the slinky dress and couldn’t return the custom one. But oh well. I have some very special Christmas gifts for my single friends, heh heh heh.

I could save them for our renewal vows 10 or 20 years from now. Although by then, we might not even remember we were married. But if I gain weight, the slinky dress does have some stretch, so I got that going for me.

Bridal Advice for Us Ladies of a Certain Age: 
Try on all styles of dresses (or pants!); don’t listen to anyone telling you not to look bridal at your age. Shop both online and in person and look for good quality and definitely comfort. You don’t want to wear something that scratches or feels too tight on your wedding day. Don’t worry at all about getting something your granddaughter might want to wear. She won’t. Wear what makes you feel beautiful.

And by the way, it’s very likely you’ll forget to take your gorgeous, carefully chosen wedding dress to the cleaners after the wedding. It will end up in the back of your closet with mud stains at the bottom and salsa and wedding cake on the front. But that’s okay! Be ecstatically happy, don’t sweat the small stuff, and enjoy your wedding day!

And most of all, remember:
1 John 4:19: “We love because He first loved us.”

And He did not forget you. Ever.