I Wore a Pink Dress at My Wedding and Have Zero Regrets

I got married in 2006, before the days of Pinterest. A fact which, in and of itself, I think entitles me to some sort of universal karma payback credit. It also means my bold decision seemed even more crazy and more bizarre at the time than it might today.

I wore a pink-and-white-striped wedding dress.

So, here's how it happened...

We had good, old-fashioned magazines back when I got hitched, and most of them were as fat as a Vogue's September issue. I had a vinyl "inspiration book" with plastic sleeves that I filled with tear sheets from the stacks and stacks of wedding magazines I always seemed to have lying around. Sometimes I would need to circle things on the page or include arrows, as it wasn't totally obvious what I was digging.

Doesn't this all sound adorably nostalgic?

Breaking the rules wasn't cool yet.

In the early aughts, cutting-edge wedding ideas included things like a burger bar during cocktail hour. Whoa! Or adding some feathers to your bridal bouquet. ZOMGZ!

Every bride wore a strapless, white wedding dress. Really. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. At least that was what it seemed like to me as I flipped through these magazines each evening like it was my second job.

I know my joke about Pinterest seems silly, but there weren't as many ideas floating around then like there are now. So most people weren't stepping too far outside the box. I'm not like most people...

It was love at first sight.

From the get-go, I knew that a strapless, white dress wasn't going to work for me. First of all, I don't love my arms, so a strapless dress in any color was a no-go. I'm all for body positivity and accepting yourself for who you are, but I also didn't want to spend even one millisecond on my wedding day with any "are my arms going to look chubby in that picture?" thoughts.

At this time, if you were looking for a long-sleeve wedding dress, well, good luck. Your choices went from around one-billion strapless dresses to maybe 14 long-sleeve dresses. And most of them had lace sleeves, which (to me) completely defeated the purpose of sleeves in the first place.

But one evening I was flipping through Modern Bride Magazine and BOOM. There it was. It was my dress. I didn't need to see it in person first or even try it on. I knew it was meant to be my wedding dress.

Goodbye, tradition.

My wedding dress was a Carolina Herrera pink shirt dress with white stripes. It also had a pop collar and, best of all, pockets!

Side note: I highly recommend that any bride out there, if at all possible, opt for a wedding dress with pockets. It will seriously make your day way more magical.

Anyway, I set up an appointment at the Carolina Herrera store in New York City to try on the dress in person. I waltzed in at the arranged time, tried on the dress and in less than five minutes my decision was confirmed.

Oh yes, you will be mine, pink shirt dress. Come to mama.

You do you.

Once I made my decision to wear pink, it opened up the floodgates in terms of my own wedding planning. Going non-traditional just felt so right. I felt empowered to keep making decisions simply based on what I wanted to do, rather than what was expected. It was ah-mazing. I decided that instead of abandoning white altogether, I would have my bridesmaids wear white.

I was going to have a wedding video, but my video was going to be shot on a Super 8 camera.

Don't think French fries are fancy enough for a wedding dinner? Too bad. I wanted steak frites.

Inadvertently, this whole pink wedding dress thing created the most amazing life lesson for me:

Don't be afraid to do things your way, even if others don't understand.

This is a practice I have embraced more and more with each passing year, and you know what? I owe it all to my rad pink wedding dress.