I have been waiting to write this post for months! But I couldn't share it with you until after the wedding, because I didn't want to spoil the surprise for anyone. The wedding has come and gone, we're married now! And I can finally share the beautiful story behind my beautiful wedding dress.
Some of you regular blog readers out there may have recognized my wedding dress from another recently married knit-blogger's wedding. Julie, from the fabulous Knittedbliss blog married the love of her life last March 2009, and she wore The Dress on her amazing day. Not long after I got engaged, I went out wedding dress shopping with my mom. I tried on tons of dresses, most of which were immediately rejected, and then I tried on one that I absolutely loved! I was ready to commit right then and there! I loved it! Mom convinced me to take the weekend to think about it; we were in no rush. When I got home I remembered that Julie had done this amazing post about her $5000 wedding, and that she had bought her dress second hand online. As I was scanning her post looking for the link to the second hand bridal dress website my jaw hit the floor... she got married in the dress that I had fallen in love with earlier that day!
I thought that it was just such a neat coincidence. Julie and I had communicated through our blogs a little bit before because, well, she's just got such great style and everything she knits looks amazing! I sent her an e-mail telling her the story of how I had fallen in love with the very same dress that she had, and that I was probably going to buy it for my own wedding. Then, thats when I got totally floored... Julie responded with the sweetest, most enthusiastic e-mail. She didn't know me or my then fiancé (now husband!) Chris, but she was obviously so in love with her husband and such a romantic, kind, generous person that she offered to lend me her dress for my wedding. I was a stranger, but to her, I think that I was a stranger in love and that was all that she needed to know.
We e-mailed back and forth, and in October in Toronto I met up with Julie and tried on the dress. It fit, I loved it more than ever, and I took it home with me.
Julie adamantly refused to accept a renter's fee or any kind of payment - she just wanted me to take the dress and enjoy it. I was so overwhelmed by her generosity and her faith that I would be good to the dress and treat it with care. When I picked up the dress I brought with me a small offering of yarn, including a sweaters worth of aran weight in Grape.
Which brings us to this week's TFA Tuesday inspirational knit! Knittedbliss' November Fitted Pullover. (blog post, ravelry project page.)
This sweater is beautiful, and of course its special to me since looking at it makes me think of the wedding dress and all that it means to me. I will definitely knit one for myself soon, and I know that it will carry with it the same reminder, because it will be a knit inspired by a beautiful story, I'm very sentimental like that!
On my wedding day I felt like the luckiest, happiest girl in the world to be marrying the love of my life. I also felt beautiful and fabulous in my dress, and that's all thanks to Julie. I love that I was wearing a dress that had such amazing karma; I saw Julie and Guy together just for a few moments, but they are so obviously head over heels in love, and I really believe that the dress carries that love with it.
Julie, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love this dress, and I love it even more because it has such a beautiful story behind it.
photo by SUPA studio.
