My Wedding Dress {A Third Letter To My Daughter}

Dear Baby Girl,

Three years ago I had the brilliant idea to take your picture in my wedding dress every year until you were eighteen (or at least until you wouldn’t let me). You can click here to see the first year, and here to see the second year. Well, I had grand plans this past year for your photoshoot and drug my wedding dress along with us on our summer vacation thirteen hours away to Myrtle Beach, SC (yeah, I know I’m getting to the actual blog a few days into the new year, but that’s mom life for you). I had vivid day dreams about what your photo session would be like…the sandy beaches, the waves behind you, the sun falling on your hair perfectly…..but again, those were just day dreams and very VERY far from the reality that occurred. This is what actually happened on that hot, humid July day: You were sun burned under your eyes and super tired (I mean, why wouldn’t you be tired from swimming in the ocean all day?!). You absolutely hated the way the dress felt on you (you get it honestly, I had battles with my socks daily as a child and still do to this day…darn socks) and you were trying to pull the dress up to feel comfortable. The sun was blinding…I mean, we were both blind and squinty. I couldn’t see the back of my camera screen and you could barely keep your eyes open. Then there was the wind…..the strongest winds that made our eyes water and your hair blow everywhere…..and then of course the wind blew the sand in your eyes. I yelled at you because I had these wonderful visions in my mind and they were all going to crap, then you cried…. then my mom yelled at me for yelling at you and I wanted to cry. I couldn’t tell who the child was, you or me because I was throwing just as much of a fit as you were…so I grabbed you up out of the sand and hauled you to the van and said, “the heck with it…it is what it is”….And that my dear child, was your third photoshoot in my wedding dress. The crazy thing is, at the time I thought I didn’t get one good shot (at least not any that I wanted anyway) and I couldn’t even edit the images because the light was so flat and I had a terrible attitude….But, now looking at your images FIVE MONTHS later, I love them. No, they aren’t what I had hoped for, but they are of you in my wedding dress and isn’t that what I wanted in the first place? You see, sometimes in our life, we have plans and when things don’t go the way we’d like, we can get upset, confused, anxious, and even mean. We can only see what is in front of us at the moment and may not understand the reasons why things aren’t going according to our plan….but as time goes on, hopefully we see a new perspective on the situation. God seems to work this way a lot in my life…there have been so many times I don’t see how anything good can come from what is happening, but when my perspective changes from “why is this happening?” to “what do you want me to learn?” it makes a world of difference. So my prayer for you is that you can take a step back when things aren’t going the way you have in mind, ask God what He wants you to take away from the situation, change your attitude, and embrace the life in front of you. I love you sweet child,

Mom

I didn’t even edit out the clip holding up her dress…because..this is how it was 😉