Back at the beginning of the original lockdown I joined a Facebook group called ‘Putting your bins out in your ballgown’. It made me smile and provided a little light relief in pandemic times. I hadn’t contributed to the group, but watched from a distance and found the daily themes quite entertaining. Then yesterday, on wedding Wednesday, I finally contributed a photo from my wedding day. What I hadn’t expected was the emotions it would evoke.

I was only 17 when I got engaged to my late husband. He was a little older but had no more experience when it came to wedding planning than I did. Unsurprisingly. Some catering insight. And what I discovered in the subsequent months dramatically opened my eyes. I had grown up very close with my mother, a relationship I now recognise as toxic and scarily codependent. But when it came to organising my wedding she was in her element. She actually did next to nothing, my future husband and I did the leg work. She dictated what we would have on our wedding day and ensured absolutely everything was done on an unrealistically limited budget. And when we finally pulled off a pretty successful wedding she did her best to take the credit.

So in our quest to reduce costs I made the flowers for myself and the bridesmaids, made the three fruit cakes for the wedding cake (did get someone more competent to ice them), created the front cover for the orders of service, refashioned my parent’s cake topper with new flowers, and I made my wedding dress from scratch.

Prior to making my wedding dress, my skills as a seamstress were epitomised by making a basic wrap around skirt in needlework at school. But because my mother had made her wedding dress back in the sixties, she deemed making my own dress was good enough for me. When I look back now, it breaks my heart that I never got to experience that moment in a bridal boutique of finding ‘the one’. Yet I remained optimistic.

I remember mother and I going shopping for a pattern and fabric. The pattern was easily selected, it was the only full length dress that was in my size. So I was told that was that. I remember looking at some truly gorgeous fabrics, but was pulled away in the direction of the the remnant bin. A roll of satin was pushed under my nose. A much reduced price because it had a flaw in it. I was told it was only a small flaw and I could work round it. So that was my fabric selected too. To have protested would have been shamed as my being ungrateful so I accepted what I had.

I soon discovered that my mother had no intention whatsoever of helping with the making of the dress. Oh, I lie, she did pin the hem of the skirt while I stood patiently in the dress. Sadly that hemline was desperately wonky, and our lovely photographer’s assistant on the big day spent much time and effort doing her best to disguise it. The rest of the dress looked ok, good even, but that hem!

The not small process of making a wedding dress was often fraught. My friend from school, in a bizarre exchange of “If you make me a bridesmaid, I’ll help you with your dress” turned out not to be a great deal. She was much better at needlework, her mother regularly made clothes for the family and had a dedicated sewing room so was on hand for expertise. But we fell out after our second dressmaking session. Temporarily. She was still bridesmaid, I carried on with the dress alone. The night before the wedding, everything done and ready to go, my mother, decided it was a good time to my criticise my efforts. Focusing on some stitching in the under arm area of the dress, she deemed it too scruffy and it required finishing more neatly. I’m afraid at this point I did tell her that if she didn’t like it, feel free to finish it more neatly herself. Funnily enough it obviously wasn’t that bad after all.

Our wedding day was beautiful. A strange mismatch of extravagant and spendthrift. Depending, I think with hindsight, which parent I asked for the funds. Because my dad was busy working and not wanting to be involved in planning he would just give me cash. Whereas mum wanted control and to spend as little as possible. My late husband too chipped in the cost of various things, deemed to be his responsibility according to the little wedding planning book. He didn’t scrimp. I arrived at the church in a white Rolls Royce. I was wearing white lace gloves that I’d bought at a car boot sale for forty pence.

Three years after our wedding we moved to the flat I still currently live in. It was a new build. The housing association moved us in in a great hurry. We had a spare bedroom with a built in wardrobe, and we used it for storage, including my wedding dress, my husband’s two suits and other smart dresses of mine I didn’t wear too often. We didn’t know anything about just-built properties. We never knew the plaster hadn’t dried out when we put our best clothes in that cupboard. One day we opened the doors to find everything covered in damp mould. My other dresses could go in the washing machine, but I knew my handmade wedding dress would never survive a wash cycle. My husband was muttering about having to get his suits dry cleaned, and I added, “Yes, and my wedding dress.” He looked at me like I was utterly stupid, and said, “We can’t afford that!” I was young, and I’d trusted him when he’d denied me financial autonomy when we married. I looked at him pleadingly. He said, angrily, “Well it’s not like you’re ever going to wear it again. Why can’t you put it in the washing machine?”

After explaining to him, I pulled the dress off its hanger, scrunched it into a ball and stormed out the flat. Tears of frustration, anger and just devastation streamed down my face. I strode across the car park to the communal bins, opened the lid and dumped my not-perfect but perfectly adequate but now mouldy wedding dress in the trash. Hours of work and dedication and the memories associated with it, just gone.

Should I ever get married again, (stop laughing!) I shall have that moment in the bridal shop. I’m done with being controlled. I’ll have what I want.