Classy & Confused

Selling My Wedding Dress

This weekend I took my wedding dress to a consignment shop and I had so many of my closest friends in shock over my choice to sell my wedding dress. I didn’t expect it to be a big deal at all, but then I started getting messages about tradition and why wouldn’t I keep it for my future daughter and I just wanted to take this perfect opportunity to write out all my feelings.

My husband and I live in a smaller one bedroom apartment and it is perfect for us. I might feel frustrations about the size every now and then, but at the end of the day we really love this place. When we moved here, I planned on being someone who is really conscious of the amount of stuff that they own. We’ve toyed with the idea of getting a tiny house and while I don’t think I can handle living that tiny, I definitely didn’t want too much space. I don’t want to spend money trying to decorate extra rooms and spend time cleaning areas of our home that we don’t use. Maybe I will feel differently about that as time goes on, but for now, it seems pointless to me and to our lifestyles.

So, I am constantly trying to edit our home…and my closet. I love to shop, but I don’t love the way clutter feels. If I don’t wear something or don’t plan on ever wearing it again, I find someone who will. I firmly believe that good clothes deserve to be worn and loved! And of course, a great dress is no exception to that.

I know, I know…a wedding dress is so much more than just another dress. For me at least, my wedding dress gave me the best day (and pictures!!) of my life. On my wedding day my mother helped me get into that dress, that dress saw the happy tears of all the people I love, it endured so many hugs, so much dancing, and a generous amount of white wine and mud on its gorgeous open, lacy back and train. I felt amazing on my wedding day and I can’t imagine having worn anything else when marrying my best friend.

It is a really amazing dress!

And it deserves to be worn and loved all over again, instead of being shoved to the back of my closet to taunt me with its impossible tininess in 20 years!! I also don’t want to put the pressure of my dress and “tradition” onto any future daughter I might have. What if I saved my dress for 30 years, carefully packed it away and added it to the burden of each move, carved out space for it in every future closet, planned this wonderful story in my head of a daughter who would want to wear it on her own wedding day…and then it didn’t fit her and I realized all of that was for nothing? Or worse, what if *gasp* she didn’t want to wear it and wanted to have her own special dress?! I think tradition can be so meaningful and important, but a tradition that puts an emotionally charged expectation on someone you love maybe isn’t the best tradition to continue keeping.

Am I sad to know that it isn’t going to be there if I need a quick reminder of my favorite day? Yeah, of course! It is great to have sweet little memories stashed around your home just in case of a bad day! But I get to wake up every morning next to the biggest reminder of that magical day, which is better than any dress could ever be.

Even though I might be a little sad, I am also super excited for the woman that gets to use my dress next. I hope her day is as amazing as mine was and wish her a long, happy marriage filled with love and laughter.

Always Classy & Confused,

MGW

Kansas City Mini-Moon

I have absolutely no regrets about deciding not to take a full honeymoon right after the wedding. My hubby completely agrees with that statement too. When we started thinking about where we wanted to honeymoon, it seemed like we couldn’t agree on anything. The honeymoon became a point of stress for us (me). We argued about it endlessly until I finally got so frustrated that I decided we just shouldn’t go anywhere. I will admit I made that decision out of spite originally, but now I am so happy we decided to just stay home. After the wedding we were both exhausted, we missed our cats and our home, and just wanted to spend some time alone, together. 

Neither one of us took a ton of time off work, which left us with just a few days to celebrate our nuptials. 

While we’ve lived in Kansas City for a couple years now, we haven’t really done all the “Kansas City” things. Having a minimoon in our city gave us a chance to really explore! It felt so good to wake up in our home on Monday morning knowing we would get to spend the entire day doing whatever we wanted together. We had no obligations or itineraries and it was amazing. We ended up sleeping in, grabbing coffee, and then heading to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum to mosey around. Somehow, it was our first time visiting the museum! We spent a few hours marveling at the art and getting hyped about seeing work from artists we knew. (I’m looking at you, Monet.) After getting cultured, we headed to the Country Club Plaza for a late lunch at Gram & Dunn. This was another place that we had never been and it was exciting getting to experience new things in a city we both love. We spent the rest of our mini-moon time eating leftovers, watching Netflix, and playing with our cats. 

Even though it wasn’t some insanely insta-worthy trip, it was just what we needed. We both ended our staycation feeling refreshed and a little bit more ready to head back to the real world as husband and wife.

Always Classy & Confused,

MGW