I've never really been what you'd call voluptuous. In fact, Mother Nature dished me out what can only be described as a pair of really quite small breasts. It makes sleeping on your front a whole lot more comfy, I'm sure, but when it comes to packing a punch in a glamorous dress, I'd never really felt up to the occasion. If I was going to a gala, I'd keep it kooky and walk away from anything that required a B cup or more to make it sing. Until I bought my wedding dress [1].
When I walked into that shop to buy the dress of my dreams [2], I was so sure I wasn't coming out with anything that showed my cleavage. Well, when I say cleavage, what I meant at the time was a rather brief bulge that gave way to a prominent chest bone. That's how I saw myself and it wasn't going on display. I walked in thinking slightly off-beat Victorian or maybe lace to the neck à la Grace Kelly, but I didn't go in believing low cut is so me. And then I tried on the first dress that caught my eye and everything changed.
It was cream, it had a boned bodice, it had a gorgeous slim skirt that flared out from the nipped-in waist, it had a mini train (I had always wanted a mini train), it had buttons down the back (another on the must-have list), and it had a very low front. That bodice had no sleeves attached to it and it climbed elegantly into two thin straps that left far more of my cleavage out there than I had ever even contemplated. And I loved it.
I tried on others, but they were just making up the numbers (although I will always treasure the fact I got to jump off a chair into a huge Cinderella dress, which took two people at least 10 minutes to do up). That first dress had won my heart and changed the way I looked at myself. Because while those breasts might not have been bouncing around in their oh-so-neat new home, they looked pretty darn good even if I do say so myself. My dream dress showed me just how well I could look when I embraced a style I thought I could never manage. And it changed the way I bought clothes.
After that, I didn't just walk away from a dress or top that took the plunge. I tried it. Some worked, some didn't, but I started to look at myself in a different way. Looking back at photos of me in the Summer after my wedding, at the Christmas parties that followed, I can see necklines just like my wedding dress creeping into my wardrobe. My body hadn't changed, but my relationship with it had. And for the better.
Buying your wedding [4] dress is always going to be a special occasion. You'll never have so many people be so nice to you in a shop, you'll never feel as much like a princess, you'll never stand in a changing room and smell so much money in the air as you do that day. But what I also learned from buying my wedding dress is that sometimes you just don't know how much confidence you should have about your body until you try something new. I have Victorian blouses, I've got an all-lace dress à la Grace Kelly, but I've also got a new love of Mother Nature's gift to me. And all thanks to that gorgeous, glitzy gown.