I’m still purging clothes… which means I have more sentimental stories to share with you! Yay(…?)!
I’ve worn each of these dresses only ONCE! But every time I went through my dresses to purge or organize I couldn’t get rid of them because I wore each of them at a significant event.
I wore the black dress at my graduation from high school in May of 2002. And never wore it again.
I wore the pink dress to a Flamenco dance in Seville, Spain, with my dad (and Spanish teacher and classmates) in June of 2002. And never wore it again.
I wore the black and white dress the day Steven proposed to me in September 2004. And never wore it again.
You get the idea! Bye, bye, dresses! FINALLY. I have great memories from those events, and don’t need to hold on to you to remember them.
I’ll always remember the joy of graduating from high school, and having so much hope for college! Thank you, black dress.
I’ll always remember my first commercial flight, my first time overseas, and how special it was that I was with my dad! Thank you, pink dress.
I will always remember the day Steven proposed, and how I bought that dress right before he arrived, and it was on super clearance because it had a rip in it, and a friend helped me sew it up and do my makeup (? clearly not my hair…). Thank you, black and white dress!
I still have so many boxes to go through, but, progress is progress!
I’m curious why you never wore those dresses again! I didn’t wear my HS graduation dress again because it was an ill-fitting white lace dress (we HAD to wear white) that was the only thing I could find at Penney’s in my size (plus-sized teens had very few options in the 90’s). These dresses are actually cute for their time!
I totally get sentimental clothes though. I had a box of clothes from when I first moved to Chicago that I kept moving around for YEARS because that was such a significant time in my life. It’s good to finally be able to let go and purge though.
I think it’s because I have so many other dresses! These still fit me, but I never picked them when I was going to wear a dress. I think they are still cute too, but I’m thinking if I haven’t work them in 15+ years, I am not going to. LOL.
Did you get rid of that lace dress right away?!
I have had connections to a lot of clothes like that over the years! It’s interesting, right? Either from who gave it to me or when I wore it or what specific event I wore it to.
LOL yes, if you haven’t worn them yet, you won’t. I’ve been actively marking stuff in my closet when I wear it so I can do a purge at the end of summer. I have way too many clothes and only wear a fraction of it.
My mom wouldn’t let me get rid of the dress right away so it’s actually still hanging in the closet in my old bedroom. It even survived their massive house cleaning last summer, somehow. I mean, I only graduated 20 years ago. I may still want it!
That’s a good plan! You’ll feel better to get rid of the stuff you aren’t using, too!
OMG. Have you guys talked about it and she doesn’t want to get rid of it?
Oh, no, nothing like that – just me never having time to clean that stuff out when I visit and apparently my parents think I may still want a 20 year old yellowing dress lol. This post just reminds me I should finally throw stuff like that out when I visit in a few weeks!
Ahh, gotcha! I hope you do have time to throw some stuff out!
Great job on the continued purging! That pink dress is really pretty but it makes sense to send it on its way if you’re not wearing it any more. I love the look back on the significance of when you wore the dresses.
Thanks! I think it’s pretty too! I have many other floral dresses to choose from that I actually have worn more than once!
You have such a great attitude towards cleaning out your stuff! I’m glad you have photos of all of these events. It’s fun to learn more about you as you reminisce about these times in your life. (Baby faces!)
Thanks! I feel like we have too much crap we don’t use and I am ecstatic to get rid of it!
I was so glad to find these pics! Especially the graduation one with my grandpa, who is now gone.
I got an awesome deal on a dress like that, the one you mentioned had a hole in it. I got it for crazy cheap, fixed it, wore it once, loved it…and never wore it again either! Ha ha. Luckily I am willing to purge too and don’t have it anymore.
Ha! Funny the exact same thing happened to you for the exact same style of dress!
Most of my one-time-use dresses never made it out of my parents house (high school dance dresses, mostly), but I do still have my dress from the Christmas Dance in 2007 (!) in my current apartment because it’s a little black dress and “maybe I’ll wear it again!” (I’m never going to wear it again. Even if I need a little black dress for an occasion, I’m almost certainly not going to wear one I got for myself as a 17 year old. I doubt it would even fit anymore!) I don’t even remember what dress I wore for my high school graduation, ha. I don’t think I have any pictures of me in just the dress, not the cap and gown!
I want to know more about your engagement dress, since you said you bought it right before he arrived. Did you know you were getting engaged that night and wanted to dress up for the occasion? Or was it just a coincidence?
LOL! So are you going to keep LBD a little while longer? (OMG, remember the books we’d read as kids that mentioned the LBD over and over? I feel like maybe you’d have read some of the same stuff that made that seem like that was THE ITEM that signified you were a woman).
So, I knew Steven was coming to town to celebrate our two year dating anniversary and that he reserved a table at the nicest restaurant in our small college town! So I had an inkling I should look nice! 🙂
Yes! I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I still have it – I had it drilled into my head that all women NEED a LBD, so I’m scared to get rid of it! Haha. Eleven and a half years after purchasing the dress in the first place and having never had an occasion where I actually needed a LBD, I’m starting to wonder if I was led astray by all those books! 😛
Ha ha ha, I think we may have been lead astray! And I bet you have another black dress? I know I have several!!!
And not only do you have the pictures and the memories, but now you also have a nice blog post about them!
I’m with Bethany – would love to hear more about the engagement story!
Yeah! I bet at some point I will look for this post to remember them – I actually search my blog a lot for stuff!
I knew Steven was coming to town to celebrate our two year dating anniversary and that he reserved a table at the nicest restaurant in our small college town! So I had an inkling I should look nice for the occasion! 🙂
Awww! That’s romantic!
I’m impressed that you’ve hung onto these dresses for so long…your sentimentality is so sweet! And I’m also impressed that you were able to cull them – making room for more special dresses.
Don’t be impressed! There is no reason to hold on to this crap! Ha ha ha 😉
I do love dresses! But I wear them so infrequently now, I am going to try not to get many more! Although, some are so distinct I can’t wear them too often… 😉
Oh my goodness. This is so funny to me because I just got rid of a few dresses that were in my closet because I haven’t worn them in a year, hahaha. I’m BRUTAL with my wardrobe. If I keep passing it by in my closet for a few months, it goes to Goodwill.
I’ve actually gotten into this habit of buying a new dress for an event and just returning it when the event is over, unless I really loved the dress. Probably not the best way to go about this, haha.
I want to be more like you!!!
You are wearing it to the event and then returning it?! LOL! You sound like a good candidate for Rent the Runway!