Once upon a time there was a girl who could not stop thinking about a boy. After thinking about him for a disconcerting amount of time she got up the courage to ask him out. Nine months later they were engaged. Four months after that and she can be found here, attempting to document her journey in preparation for her wedding.

As soon as Tyler asked me to marry him I knew I had to make my own wedding dress. It is something I've wanted to do since I started sewing. So I sat down and started the sketching process.

It was entirely too overwhelming. I continued however, until I finally sketched up the perfect dress for me. I had decided between the art nouveau and the bohemian look and came up with the general lines I would be using in the dress. I excitedly showed my mother, to which her response was, "Oh, hold on and let me grab that."

"Whaaaat?!" I said.

And grab it she did. My mom had the exact dress I had sketched. Except better. It was the dress I used to dream of wearing when I was four. To me, it was the most beautiful garment a woman could wear.

She had bought this dress in 1996 at JC Penney during their Christmas sale. She paid $20 for it and wore it once - to Christmas dinner. Since then she has stored it in the original garment bag and transported it from house to house when we moved around. Without ever folding it. Or cramming it away. For 16 years!

Unfortunately I cannot give up any more details about the dress until after the wedding. My fiance doesn't want to hear about it, see it, touch the bag its in, nothing. He reads my blog to critique and only knows the story about the dress. If he had his way he wouldn't know that either. Everything about our attire will be unknown to each other until that day comes.

It makes the anticipation for the wedding that much greater.