Day #8: A picture of you in one of your favorite outfits

Ah yes. Every girl's wedding dress should be her favorite outfit. Mine was no exception.

Allen and I were broke ... and not broke in a funny, "Oh, we only have a few hundred in savings" broke. We were BROKE, and we didnt have shit. Thats why we decided to just get married already .... I had just drove a million hours from GA to Arizona, and I figured once I had put in that sort of legwork I deserved a little BAH.

So, with my roommates by our side (oh - Mr. Atlanta Recruiter that told us we could 'totally live off base together in AIT once we were married'? You are on my eat shit and die list), we set off to the Sierra Vista, AZ courthouse for a little quick hitchin'. 

 We showed up at the courthouse, they didnt even ask for ID, and gave us our license (apparently we looked trustworthy?).  The judge told us that the "people before didn't show up" (I told Allen that on the way the guy must have told the girl that his life insurance wouldn't be going in her name .... so she called it off ....) and we proceeded to get married in the quickest ceremony EVER. And then I took my new husband back to the barracks. We, in fact, did not spend the night together until the next Saturday.

I know so many people shake their heads at this story. With the way weddings are today, there are plenty of folks who cant fathom a union that begins with no family, people you've only known for a few days, no cake, no DJ, and no family tiffs over place card settings.

There are times when I wish we would have done the whole shebang, and had the big dress, the first dance, the grand honeymoon. But more over I see how fitting our ceremony really was. It was the two of us, scared to death, in a new place, vowing to lean on only each other. And through the years thats exactly what we've had to do, over and over and over again. 

Some marriages fall apart when the bottom falls out and there's nothing left. As for us .... we started with nothing, so there's no real precedence set for anything else. I loved my husband when it was him and I in a rented room with a borrowed bed. And I love him now, when weve gained a whole lot of shit. I see how far weve come in four years, how hard weve worked, and what the payoff from that has been. 

To get back to the dress, it was found on sale .... I couldnt afford much, but I was all alone in a new place, and didnt have shit to do anyways. I wandered into the little hallway of a mall, and wished my mom or my best friend was with me to find something suitable to commit my life in that was under $30. I found this dress, on a serious clearance for $18. It was the only one left, fit perfectly (oh .... those were the days. Look how young and thin ....), and was everything I wanted. Although white was a bit of a stretch ....(clearly) it was perfect. I would have chosen the exact same thing, even if I had a budget of a million dollars.