Dressed Up and Dreaming

I never understood all the fuss about weddings. I never considered what we would wear or how we would decorate or even the flavor of cake. When I thought about weddings, I thought about him smiling at me, a smile that would easily eclipse any tuxedo. And kissing each other. And the thrill of knowing he loved me that much.

I guess I wasn't concerned with the wedding; I wanted what came after. I wanted him to be my roots, my home, the thing that steadied me. I wanted to be the best part of his day, to fill those little in-between moments with the stuff of love: a heart drawn on a post-it note, a kiss as we passed in the hallway, a glass of wine brought to him as he typed...

I would have married him wearing a t-shirt, with no ado whatsoever, and happily gone home to build this life I wanted for us so very much.

But we never built that life. He didn't want it. Or he didn't want me. (I don't know; I didn't ask.) And after the dream dissipated, I began to feel contempt toward the idea of marriage. It seemed such a flighty notion, to build a tangible temple upon nothing but love - love, such an erratic, fickle, whimsical thing. Such a nebulous foundation. It was bound to crumble.

A week ago, I saw this gown.

   

And it tugged at the girlish reveries of romance I thought I had finally left behind. It wasn't so much the gown as what it represented: a steadfast love, one with enough faith and courage to build a temple, build a life and walk into the future together. Loving each other that much. Proof that sometimes taking the leap and investing all that love and hope and intimacy is so completely worth it, that sometimes the temple will last.

I want to be all dressed up in love again. It may be layers of the lightest tulle, like this gown, or it may be the soft cotton of an old favorite t-shirt. The fabric won't matter as long as it fits, as long as the seams are sewn well enough to last, as long as we can build a temple upon it.