Internet rumors of my upcoming marriage have been greatly exaggerated.
In fact, they are a total fabrication. I have traced the source back to a posting on Flicker, which includes a photo downloaded from my website years ago. I recently searched for the photo on TGToday but was unable to locate it. Not too surprising; as there are over 3200 photos on TGToday.com.
The photo was taken down several years ago as, at the time, I was uncomfortable posting a photo of myself in a wedding dress. Since someone else has taken the liberty of doing so --with laughable remarks, I might add-- I will repost the original photos, as well as a bit of interesting history about the dress. (2/15/04)
To correct the Flicker posting, this was not my sister’s dress. I bought this wedding dress and another at the Scholar Shop (St. Louis MO) on Bag Day, I believe in 2003 or 2004. This was the first Bag Day event that I had been to and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Everyone gets one or more paper grocery bags when they go in, and everything that fits into a bag can be purchased for $25. From an earlier visit, I knew there were two wedding dresses that fit me, and I was hoping to get at least one of them. When I looked on the rack where they had been earlier, they were gone. I was a bit disappointed, as that was my main interest, but decided to look around for something else. About 5 minutes later I found the dresses at another spot in the store. I was trying to stuff the dress in question into the paper bag when one of the ladies who worked there came by and stopped me. I was a bit nervous, thinking, “What did I do wrong?” She took the dress from me and said, “Let me show you how to do that.” She proceeded to roll the dress up like a sleeping bag, then whipped out a handful of rubber bands and put them around the dress. Well, as large as that dress was, it easily fit into the bag--and there was even room for the other one! She even gave me another handful of rubber bands for more stuff. All in all, I spent over an hour there and ended up with two full bags of clothing.
I was eager to restore the dress to a nice condition, so when I got home I unwrapped it from the rubber bands, got out my steamer and started steaming. Right away I noticed some small and not-so-small spots of red sauce. Quite a few actually. The bride must have been rather hungry after starving herself for several months to fit into the dress. I didn't have a lot of hope in getting the spots out, but the steamer worked wonders; every spot was removed plus all the wrinkles. When I finished with the steamer, the dress was in beautiful shape. I did have to alter it a bit, but most wedding dresses have huge seams and it was quite easy with a sewing machine. The next step was to home dry clean it, and finally some steam touchups to remove new wrinkles.
Both dresses were restored to really nice condition, and then I had one photo-op at home with both of them. I also wore each dress twice to different events over the years; three times for Halloween, of course. Unfortunately two of the times I was out, I did not get any photos. I can't complain, because I have so many other fine photos from so many places. The fourth time was a STLGF fashion show. The show was judged, and I won a bouquet of roses.
Well, that is the history of the wedding dress. As far as the rest on Flicker, I guess the gown was beautiful enough to inspire someone’s vivid imagination.
