The Blue Chalk Story

9 years ago yesterday was one the happiest days of my life. I woke up with a smile on my face (which as those close to me know, RARELY happens! :)). I had a beautiful white dress waiting to be put on, and a VERY handsome man waiting to become my husband in just a few hours. At the time my parents were in the process of putting an addition on to their house. Progress came to a halt when Sam and I announced our engagement, as the money was now needed for the wedding!! It was all enclosed-just finish work on the inside not done. When we brought my dress home, my dad pounded a nail up on the wall and we hung my dress there so the train could fan out without getting wrinkled, etc. No one really went over there, so the dress wouldn't be in the way or get stepped on-it worked out great.
Fast forward to the time it was time to pack up the dress to take it to the wedding. Dad had gone ahead for some reason, and Mom and I weren't tall enough to reach the hanger to get the dress down. Instead of getting a chair or something, we just grabbed a piece of wood that was in a box where the construction "leftovers" were tossed to use to hook the hanger and bring it down-easy peasy, right?!?! Unbeknownst to us, that piece of scrap wood had BRIGHT blue marking chalk on the end of it, and you can imagine the rest. Yep, a bright blue streak right on bodice part of my very white wedding dress. It was right at the top in the very front-no way to miss that baby!!! I thought my mom was going to faint. I remember standing there in shock, and Jana (my maid of honor) putting her hands on my shoulders and physically turning me around and pushing me out of the room, saying "it's going to be fine, it's ok, it's all going to work out, don't worry". I took a few deep breaths and went back in to where my mom was still standing, probably in shock like I was. We tried to wipe it off, which just smeared it worse!! I'm actually quite impressed that we didn't freak out, or maybe my mom did and just didn't let me see it, but I remember that I really knew that it WAS going to be ok and that somehow my mom would get it out. Long story short, my mom called every wedding dress shop she could think of and no one had any suggestions on how to get blue chalk out of wedding dresses. I went ahead to get my hair done, etc and Mom worried about the dress. When she brought it to me later that day, you couldn't even hardly tell it was there. Someone from a dress shop in Waterloo had give her something like white-out for fabric and she just painted over the blue. No one noticed at the wedding (or at least they didn't tell me they did!) and it was a wonderful day. Today if you would look at my dress, you can still see that white spot with just a hint of blue showing thru. And you know what? I'm kind of glad it's there. Granted, if I had to do it again, I probably would have just gotten a chair or at least checked the end of the wood scrap, but it's an awesome story to tell my granddaughters on their wedding days! :) It's a reminder to me that even when life doesn't go the way I want it to, it all works out ok. My heart was so full of love that day that even if my entire dress was covered in blue chalk, I still would have been Mrs. Sam Brandt and that sounds pretty good to me.

9 years, 3 kids, one still VERY handsome husband-I'm lovin' my life!!