A Post for Nikki, My Fellow Vintage Clothing Fan :)

I recently "met" the lovely and sweet Nikki of The Scarlett Rose Garden. She has lost more than 80 pounds--which is about the same amount of weight I had to lose when I started my own weight loss/better health journey last year--and thus has been quite an inspiration to me. Her photos and writings just exude warmth and love of life, and I'm so glad to have found her online.

Nikki designed her own wedding gown and asked today to see the one I've had in mind since I was 18, so here for my fellow vintage clothing-loving new friend is my dream gown. Mr. Mike and I can skip a "real" wedding and just head to the courthouse and I'll be happy, as "wedding hoopla" has never interested me much, but even if we got married in a trash dumpster with only the flies as our witnesses, I'd still want to be wearing this dress.  It was designed by Yumi Katsura and was featured in the June 1995 issue of Victoria magazine. I was looking through my grandmother's magazines while staying with her during the summer of 1995, and when I saw this photo, I just knew this was the only wedding gown I ever wanted to wear and even now, 13 years later, it's the one I want. The design itself looks pretty simple, so if I can't find an inexpensive dress that looks enough like this, I'll likely just create my own: An off-white gauzey long-sleeved blouse with a long skirt, a strapless cream corset or swimsuit underneath, a collar and French cuffs and faux bow-covered buttons up the back and along the cuffs...I'm sure we'll find a way to get the look I want. :) It's just such a sweet dress, and since the photo shows the model with her back turned, it's always been that much easier to imagine myself in it. With my hair pulled up and the last 30 or so pounds gone, that back-turned picture's probably how I'll actually look on my wedding day anyway. And I think 18-year-old Val somehow knew that all along, which is why the photo spoke to her the way it did. ♥