You thought you were safe. You thought I was done talking about my wedding. I know I said I was done, but what girl is ever done talking about her wedding? Even now, almost eight months later, I still have some updates on my wedding keepsakes.

Brides Across America and my Wedding Dress ~

I received my dress back in the beginning of this process from a wonderful organization called Brides Across America. They partner with designers, donors, and some very generous dress owners and hold trunk shows for qualified* combat-veteran military members or their soon-to-be spouses to pick out a beautiful designer dress. Free of charge. How amazing is that? I absolutely could not believe it when I showed up at the trunk show hosted by Bridal Reflections on 5th and walked out of there with a gorgeous Maggie Sottero ball gown that I never would have been able to afford otherwise. Talk about your Cinderella moments! Here are a few photos of the gorgeous gown – and Mickey, because we did have a Disney wedding, after all:

{cleaned, mended, and ready to ship}

After getting the dress expertly cleaned and fixed, I made the decision to ship it back to Brides Across America to be offered at another trunk show so that maybe some other lucky girl will see it and take it to have her own Cinderella moment. It was harder to do than I anticipated, and I teared up a little at the post office as the nice lady there helped me tape up the box, but it was the right thing for me to do.

A dress is too individual a choice to hand down through the years – I have other keepsakes I can hand down to any daughter I might have for her wedding besides the dress – and if I didn’t hand it down, what was I going to do with it? Cart it around for 8-10 years or until we finally stop moving on the off chance that someone might want it eventually? No. It just didn’t make sense for us, and donating it to the same wonderful program that gave it to me just feels right. I’d planned on doing this for long enough that I was even able to joke that my dress was my “something borrowed.” But the memories are mine all the same.

*To qualify for Brides Across America, you must be a member of the military {or their soon-to-be spouse}, have proof of a combat deployment within the last five years, and have proof of a wedding {a catering contract, etc.}. I qualified thanks to my last deployment to Iraq from Oct 2008-Oct 2009.

What I’m keeping instead ~

I may have mentioned a while ago that I was choosing a wedding bouquet keepsake after my flowers had been preserved – I chose a design and my flowers have been preserved and turned into a beautiful keepsake! I eventually chose the dome because of the beautiful display it made, and because it hearkens back to my personal favorite animated movie: Beauty & the Beast. Here’s what the finished product looks like:

This keepsake suits me much better than my dress ever could. I’ve also got all the beautiful pictures in our wedding album {and more than a few on our walls} to remember our special moments by. And I have the whole process preserved in this blog – and I have a few ideas on how to turn that into a keepsake as well! So all in all, I think my memories are safe indeed.

Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful week!

KCS

P.S. I’m trying out a Monday morning link-up that looks like it could be really fun – Monday Morning Gossip hosted by Leeann over at Join the Gossip! I’m curious to see who’s talking about what this morning!