My Wedding Dress Went to Goodwill

Our friends were coming to town a few days after Christmas, so Dave and I wanted to tidy up the place since we hadn't been home all weekend and then some. I left my sweet husband a honey-do list, and he honey-did. I came home to a lovely, clean apartment after working the day after Christmas. As I sat down to unwind with my guy, I realized that this box that we had by the door was gone. In my mind, I knew that that box contained both things to keep and things to purge. Well, in my things to keep list was....yes...my wedding dress!

I failed to communicate to Dave that I hadn't sorted through the box yet, and since he was on such a roll with cleaning and stuff, he decided to take a car load of stuff to the local Goodwill. Needless to say, I had a meltdown for fear that i'd lose my wedding dress to someone who wouldn't understand why it meant more than the normal amount to me. Our wedding photographers pursue to inspire forever, covenant, and "Don't Give Up" into the couples' marriage for whom they photograph. They have each couple pick something on which they want to write the word "prevail." In our case, we picked my dress. We would have picked the treehouse, but we weren't sure how realistic it would be to always have that with us wherever we would end up. Who knew that Sharpied fabric would become to dear to me.

Now the only thing I could see was my dress wadded up in a sad ball-- a needle in a haystack post crazy Christmas donations. Dave zipped out the door as soon as I confirmed that my dress just got handed over to unknowing strangers and drove back to see if he could get it back. When he got there, there were different people working and no one recognized him from the earlier drop off and vice versa. He came home--hands empty. The manager told him that they would keep an eye out for my dress (which was for whatever reason really hard to believe). That began the just-in-case grieving process--tears flowing.

I kept on telling myself, "If it's meant to be, i'll get my dress back." I, along with a few friends, said some prayers, and hoped for the best.

Friends, beyond good news!! I don't have to just remember my dress by way of photos. I can keep it and show our kids and maybe even our grandkids one day. Thank you Goodwill for your goodwill. They called Dave to let us know that they'd come across the bag with my dress, in a box, in a pile. Thank you, love, for making it your mission to get that back for me. I love you...so, so much.

That...was a close one.