How a $42 Wedding Dress Helped Me Heal Old Wounds

I knew I had trauma to work through. I’m pretty sure that’s just a part of being human and living life; we accumulate big and little traumas, and they affect us to varying degrees depending on how we handle them (or don’t). It wasn’t until I was preparing to marry my partner — a second-chance romance — that I realized just how deeply that trauma had burrowed into me.

Soon after we got engaged, my dear friend Nina offered to throw us an engagement party. I hugged her and thanked her for the offer, but I declined, not wanting to make a fuss. I told myself it was about practicality. I told myself that my circle these days is too small to warrant a hullabaloo. I told myself that I didn’t need one, since I’d had an engagement party the first time I was engaged in my 20s.

Weddings are notoriously expensive, and I didn’t want to blow a year’s salary on a single day. (Did you know that the US average spent on a wedding is $35,000 per couple?) My partner and I agreed we’d rather save money for a house than spend it all on a single day’s celebration. We set a (very) small budget and I got started making spreadsheets of ideas and what it would cost to implement. We decided upon an intimate ceremony in the woods — no bridal party, no flowers, no photographer, no dinner, and no dancing. It would be simple, relaxed, and easy, we imagined. But the more we talked about it, the more I realized that the ceremony wasn’t the only thing I wanted to keep small. I cracked my knuckles and started looking online, determined to keep the budget as small as possible.

I bought a simple, long white dress online for $42. And…it was fine. It fit okay, and I convinced myself that an $8 rhinestone belt would dress it up. Was I excited to wear it? Not particularly, but that didn’t matter, right? It didn’t matter what I wore, and at $42 the dress was less than 1/10th the cost of the average wedding dress. So what if the best part about the dress is the price tag? As long as I had my groom and a marriage license at the end of the day, who cares about the rest?

That’s what I kept telling myself. I remember the first time I got married. I made the mistake of asking my then-partner what he imagined me wearing. He said, “As long as there are no sequins, sparkles, or lace, it’s fine. I just don’t like embellishments.” So, despite always having a boujie boho vibe and craving a sparkly lacy wedding dress, I instead chose a plain, (stupidly expensive for what it was) silk dress to make the first guy happy. That dress cost a mortgage payment, and I regretted buying into the hype and spending that kind of coin on something I would wear for maybe 8 hours.

I vowed I wouldn’t make that mistake this time. But even as I planned for simplicity in all our details and much a lower budget, something inside me felt unsettled.

…

A few weeks later, I went over to my groom’s brother’s house to help his wife Kari plan a baby shower for my groom’s sister Meg. Meg is pregnant after a heartbreaking miscarriage two years ago, and I know she’s ecstatic but cautious. The date for the baby shower was set two weeks after our wedding date, and we dug into a color-scheme and plan. As we discussed shower details, my future mother-in-law (MIL) asked about our wedding plans. “Are you having a bridal shower?” she asked with a huge smile. I shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t think so,” I replied.

“Oh, but you have to have a bridal shower!” she exclaimed, her enthusiasm washing over me like a wave I didn’t want to get caught in. I shifted uncomfortably. “What about a honeymoon?” she asked. “Where will you go?”

I shook my head. “Nowhere. I’ll be back at work by then. It’s our busy season.” I wanted to explain that we’d had some unexpected expenses, that we valued other things more than elaborate trips. But the truth was, I was already exhausted by the conversation, by the expectations I couldn’t meet. I tried to turn the talk back to plans for Meg’s shower, but MIL was fixed on our wedding plans.

She asked about my dress, what I was going to wear, what it looked like, and tears suddenly started stinging my eyes. I excused myself to go to the bathroom so I could pull myself together. In the mirror, I dabbed my face and wondered, why am I crying? It’s just a dress. Just a day. Just a wedding. I took a few deep breaths to pull myself back together, washed my hands and rejoined the planning.

When I returned to the table with shiny eyes, my soon-to-be-sister-in-law chimed in, “It’s just one day. It doesn’t matter.” Her practicality should have been comforting, but instead, it made me feel worse. Why did I feel so… unseen?

That evening, I called my friend Nina, who once again offered to throw me a bachelorette party or bridal shower. “I want you to have a dress you love!” she insisted. “Your wedding day should be joyful, not mediocre.” Her words stuck with me. She wasn’t just talking about the dress: She was talking about me. I didn’t realize until that moment that part of the reason I had shied away from notion of making this a celebration was because somewhere deep inside, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be celebrated.

This is a second wedding for us both. Our second chance. Each of us had already been married before. Who was I to ask people to make an effort for me again? What did I really deserve?

The day after the baby shower planning session, my future mother-in-law texted me a link to some dresses online. “Just look,” she wrote. “You deserve to love what you wear.” She even offered to buy a dress for me. The universe, it seemed, wasn’t done prodding me.

I asked my fiancé what he thought. Should I stick with the $42 dress or keep looking? He asked, “How much would you want to spend?”

“Definitely under $250,” I promised. He smiled. “Keep looking, Babe. Find something you love.”

I hesitated. “Are there any styles of dress you’d prefer me to avoid?” I asked, remembering my first marriage and the dress I chose that was dictated by someone else’s preferences. He laughed. “Babe, this is your dress. Wear whatever makes you feel good.”

I hadn’t exactly been asking him for permission, but his blessing opened up a blockage inside me.

My mom, too, told me that the $42 dress was “nice” but reminded me not to let “economy be the thief of joy.”

With all these reminders swirling in my mind, I found four dresses online — well within this budget, but infinitely more exciting than the one I had in my closet. Corseted backs, floral appliques, shimmer tulle skirts, long trains… Would they look ridiculous in the woods? Absolutely. But would I be excited to try them on? An emphatic yes.

Nina offered to help me try them on and give her feedback, and for the first time, I felt something stir in me. Not excitement for the dresses themselves, but for what they represented: permission to feel joy. For months, I’d been denying myself that. I had told myself that practicality was enough, but maybe that was a lie. Maybe what I had really been denying myself was the belief that I deserved celebration.

I still didn’t want an elaborate wedding. I still believed there was something beautiful about keeping it simple and intimate, about valuing the life my partner and I are building for all the years to come rather than focusing on one day. But I realized that maybe it’s okay to let people celebrate with me, to let myself feel worthy of the fuss. Maybe this second chance isn’t just about getting it “right” — maybe it’s about allowing myself to feel loved and deserving, in all the messy, imperfect ways that love can show up.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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