My wedding dress came off the rack. It wasn't even a wedding dress. I'd set out that day with the sole specification that my dress be the prettiest one I find, and it was only by chance that the one I found was white. My friend Bronwyn and I went shopping for dresses on Oxford Street in London a month before my wedding. Bronwyn had seen one already that she thought might be right, and I liked it too. A strapless dress from Coast, with red flowers beaded and embroidered around one side. I appreciated that it was white enough to be bridey, and the red was perfect. Red is my favourite colour. But of course, I still wanted to look around a bit. I tried on bridal dresses in a few other high street shops, and other distinctly non-bridal dresses. I don't remember any of them. I do remember that by lunch time we knew the Coast dress was right, and when we found it in Debenhams with 20% off, we knew the universe was in agreement. We found a matching wrap in the accessories section, a pair of sandals, and got the underthings from M&S. Everything except the hair accessory, which I ended up making myself out of beads and a headband. And so basically, I was outfitted in a day, at a discounted rate no less. This is no romantic tale, but the dress was perfect. Bronwyn has good taste. I had the most beautiful bouquet in the world to match, and the red and white became our wedding theme. It was such a lovely day.
And so of course, I've got to weave a metaphor out of all of this. Which would be that I bought my wedding dress off the rack, on sale. The dress was gorgeous no doubt, but absolutely ordinary. The odds are that I will wear it again. And that ordinariness is my point. Our love for each other is so ordinary and absolutely unremarkable (and I mean this in the most romantic way one can), and I would not have to put on a costume to proclaim that. On my wedding day, I was dressed as myself, which was all that I had to be for us to work. It wasn't a fairy tale, but it was our real life, and one which is wonderful every day.
