From the moment I learned to sew in Home Economics in high school, I knew I would make my wedding dress.  Ladies of today, “Home Ec” was a group of classes that young women took back in the day – we didn’t take woodshop or auto tech, we took classes in home economics – learning how to be a homemaker – classes in things like cooking and sewing.  I loved my sewing home ec.  I made jumpers and dresses – Sunday dresses, homecoming dresses, prom dresses.  They were so easy and so enjoyable.  It was simply never a question whether or not I would  make my wedding dress.  It was assumed I would.

Al and I decided to get married in January of 1982.  He had been offered a job in San Francisco opening the desk on the options exchange for E.F. Hutton.  It was a wonderful opportunity and I told him I would be happy to follow him – if he married me.  He bit haha! Off he went to San Francisco in March while I still had four months of physical therapy school to finish and a wedding to plan and a dress to make.

I went to the best fabric shop in Evanston, Illinois and picked out my material with the assistance of the gentleman who worked there.  There was a bit of a snafu when the sheer material he sold me for the overskirt that was supposedly washable did not survive a soaking of water to remove the sizing  – it wrinkled and no amount of ironing could remove the wrinkles.  I took it back and after a bit of haggling on a busy Saturday morning he gave me my money back.  I found something else at another store that was appropriate. 

Mom and Dad spent the winters in Florida in those days, and I was holding down the fort, so their living room floor became my cutting table.   The dining room table became the sewing station.  My P.T. workspace was relegated to a small card table in the master bedroom.  My dress had a full train, an underskirt with a sheer overskirt, as well as a double layered skirt with netting for fullness.  There was miles of fabric everywhere, on the floor (on white sheets), hanging over chairs, you name it.  Fortunately there were no animals living there.

Evenings when I returned home from the PT internships, I would pull down the shade of the dining room window so as to not be creeped out that someone was looking in at me, and I would toil away, thinking of Al and missing him, dreaming of my wedding day.  Slowly the dress took shape before me.  A friend’s mom helped me fit the bodice even before I cut it out.  All was proceeding according to plan.

Mom and Dad flew home from Florida for a long weekend to help with wedding plans, probably in May.   The dress was ready to try on.  It fit perfectly.  Then the problems surfaced, and the tears and panic set it.  The bodice on the pattern view I had chosen had sheer material above bra line extending to the shoulder seam.  However that view had balloon sleeves and even back then I didn’t need anything “ballooney” accentuating my bosom.   I altered the pattern – or so I thought – so that the balloon sleeves would be straight fitted sleeves.  I tried on the dress.  Beautiful.  My Dad approached me as if to dance at my wedding and…I couldn’t raise my arm even close to shoulder level.  I was an experience seamstress, but not a professional and had failed to consider the difference in the allowance at the shoulders when “altering” my pattern.  Mom calmed me down and we went to the local fabric shop where the lovely owner, despite the fact that I hadn’t bought the fabric there, gently explained what I had done wrong.  There was only one practical answer, really, and that was to go with short sleeves.  I ended up doing that – cute half-cap sleeves like those you might see on a Chinese dress.  They looked darling and the day was saved.  I can’t imagine having anything other than those sleeves now.  I had great arms for an old girl of 28! 

We weren’t done yet, however.  I had lazily skipped a step in hemming the dress.  Why hem it properly when I was just going to sew lace over the edge anyway?  I’ll tell you why.  A dress that has not been hemmed properly will, when the bride pretends she is walking down the aisle across the living room floor, will “sloosh” together and not stand out following her as it should, full and gorgeous.  More tears.  Rip out the lace.  Hem it properly.  Re-sew the lace.  I am here to tell you the hem of a dress with a train is a LOT of ripping, hemming and re-sewing.   Walk across the floor.  Look gorgeous. 

I had the dress “hermetically sealed” at the cleaners.  I took it out years later when I was at the end of my rope with the little boys and Al had a prostate infection that temporarily left him unable to get to the bathroom in time which also left him in a pretty foul mood between that and his seizures.   I had a glass of wine and in a moment of pure desperation, trying to find the bright spot, pulled it out of the sealed box just to try to remind myself what the hell I was thinking 15 years earlier.  It did the trick.  Al was delighted.  He wanted to me to try it on – well, it sorta fit but not really, but it was good enough.  I hung it from the ceiling fan in the living room.  The boys danced around it enthralled.  I was ready for another go-round.

I had it resealed, not an inexpensive endeavor, but it was worth it to see it again.  In fact….