Like an outcast, it hangs in the back of my closet.  Dust gathers on its yellowed shoulders and its neckline sags like an old woman’s toothless grin.  It is my wedding dress—a relic pushed aside, crowded to the wall of my closet.  Sometimes I feel guilty about not having taken better care of it.  After all, it IS a memento of eternal love and devotion.

Once in a while in a weak moment, I consider trying it on.  How would it look?  How would it feel? I close my eyes to conjure up the young woman who wore it forty-four years ago but instead, a mental image of Miss Haversham — the old woman in Great Expectations who never removed her wedding dress after being jilted many years before–horrifies me back to reality. I resist the temptation, reasoning with myself that even if I were able to squeeze myself into it, there’s a good chance I might not be able to get if off without calling for help.  I wasn’t willing to chance that kind of embarrassment. So there it hangs–a garment meant to be worn just once–a reminder of the happiest day of my life and a testament to the many years which have passed since that day.

It had always been my dream to sew my own wedding dress.  I never even considered the possibility of buying one.  My mother wasn’t too keen on the idea, probably because I had a history of starting sewing projects that never made it to the finished stage.  That wasn’t the only problem.  Over the years, Mom was there to share in the countless fashion disasters of my own making.  I’m sure she was trying to save me from myself.

No amount of arguing could persuade me.  I was so adamant about sewing my own wedding dress that she finally decided not to push the issue.  After all, when it comes to the dreams a girl has about her wedding and her wedding dress, most women sense  that it’s akin to committing a grave, unpardonable sin to interfere.  Interfering may not secure you a place with the eternally damned, but your life on Earth may become pretty hellish for a while.

In the 1970’s it was not unreasonable to want to sew my own wedding dress.  This was a time when lovers were getting married barefooted in fields of wild flowers to tunes strummed out on guitars.  Girls wore “granny dresses” and wreaths of flowers in their long, flowing hair.  Things were simpler then and many brides didn’t even worry about applying make-up or having their hair curled.  Many brides picked their own bouquets right before the ceremony.  (These were the girls that didn’t worry about ticks back then. Or dirt, or rain, or the reception, for that matter.)

My wedding was fairly formal for 1971.  I had a wreath of flowers in my hair but they were done up by the same florist who made up my bouquet of roses and daisies.  I set my hair that morning with my electric curlers and carefully put on a bit of make-up, too.  We were married by a priest in a church to tunes strummed out on guitars.  After all, it was 1971.

My dress resembled a granny dress, but it wasn’t by choice.  That was the predominant style offered by the pattern companies in 1971.  The only patterns that were truly different and quite complicated were in the Vogue pattern book.  They were haute couture and expensive, not to mention fairly frightening to a novice seamstress.

In an overly optimistic moment, I did purchase one of those Vogue patterns.  The dress reminded me of something that Scarlett O’Hara would have worn in “Gone With the Wind”—layers upon layers, upon layers that looked as if they required a hoop to keep their shape.  That dress could have hidden several small children underneath it!  I only wanted a dress that would hide one small, growing child.

Mindful of my “condition,” I decided it was inappropriate in my case to wear a white wedding dress.  I regarded the wearing of white—a historic symbol of purity—to be tantamount to telling a lie in church.  I was sure if I did so, I’d be committing a very special type of unforgiveable sin.  My mother, however, fearing the eventual reaction of my grandmother and aunts, made it clear:  I was wearing white.  She needed to forestall the fallout caused by my fall from grace for as long as possible, at least until Christmas when everyone tends to be preoccupied anyway.  (By then, I’d be in my seventh month.  My grandmother would have to be pretty preoccupied not to notice.)  My mother’s terror was palpable and I figured that God would understand my mother’s needs and forgive my little white lie.  I wore white to preserve my mother’s peace of mind.

Mom and I shopped for fabric at Frankl’s in Garden City and the choices were endless.  I knew satin was out of the question. I needed a fabric that would endure hasty mistakes, allowing for ripped out stitches.  I chose a white voile fabric, embellished with equally white, embroidered flowers and cotton lace trim along one end.  If I cut the pieces out just right, that  trim would serve me well, and I wouldn’t have to hem my wedding dress.  Impossibly crooked hems were one of those fashion disasters in my repertoire.

As if sewing my own wedding dress were not enough, I decided to sew the bridesmaids’ dresses as well.  I chose a  pale yellow voile for my sister’s dress and a pink voile for my future sister-in-law.  They were all of twelve and fifteen years old—just little girls really, so their dresses needed to be quite modest.

My mother paid for everything—the fabric, the zippers, bias tape, ribbon and thread –for all three dresses.  The bill came to $74.78. My mother wrote out a check for the exact amount and in return, she was given an itemized, hand-written receipt.  I found it after many years. My mother had kept it neatly tucked away in her top dresser drawer.  Naturally, my wedding dress was the most expensive of the three.

It had cost all of thirty-seven dollars.