Addressing the Dress: An Explanation

Alternate Title: How My Growing up in Communist Poland is Influencing our Wedding


I am sorry to say that I will not be posting pictures of my dress pre-wedding. The reason for this has nothing to do with wanting to surprise Mr. Pudding - he is so oblivious to clothing that I don't think he would notice the dress even if I wore it while scrubbing the bathroom. Like the alternate title of my post suggests, it has to do with communist Poland. Huh? What does the political state of a central European country between the years of 1945 to 1989 have to do with my wedding dress? Stay with me, while I explain:

I was born in Poland in 1983. Without giving you a history lesson that would take hours to write (and read), I will just say that Poland in the 1980's was not a very happy place. If you have the interest and the time, you can read all about it here. Basically, the government made sure that anyone who was against communism was interrogated and punished. All it would take was for a neighbor or a (bad) friend to suggest that you were anti-government and you could be in grave danger. As you can imagine, this caused major paranoia. People were afraid to trust anyone outside of the family (or in it for that matter, as children were encouraged to snitch on their parents).

(source)

Umm.....again, what does this have to do with my wedding dress? Well, as my closest friends know, my upbringing in Poland (I lived there until I was 9) has had a huge impact on my life. The fact that my family lived in such an atmosphere has made all of us a little distrustful. I am absolutely convinced that the second I post a picture of my dress, in fact, the second that I breath a word of my selection to anyone, that person will immediately go out and purchase the exact same dress.

But Miss Pudding, some of your friends are already married!

Doesn't matter....what if they get divorced and remarried, or decide to renew their vows?

But what about the cousins that are simply too young to be married? Or the friends that are very unlikely to be getting married by next July?

I am sure that those girls would love to wear the same dress that I will be wearing to my wedding.

All very logical, right?

Nevertheless, for now, I will not be posting pictures of my dress on here. Perhaps my paranoia will wear off eventually, but honestly, I'm 26 years old and don't imagine that I will change now.

Are you paranoid about someone "stealing" your dress?

(Just as a side note, I want to say that I poke light of my childhood often, and it's simply my way of underlying the irony of how different my life is now than it was then. I hope that any of you out there with similar experiences are not offended by my light hearted remarks).