Our 4th Anniversary and the Dress to Go With it

Brian and I celebrated our four year anniversary last week. We left the baby at home with her grandparents and went to dinner at a local Italian spot. We have a special honeymoon tradition that we record the year's goings on and put a new family photo in our wedding anniversary book. The book is pretty. It looks like this....

We received it as a wedding gift from my aunt, and we do enjoy taking a few moments to recall how far we've come in the last four years- from being a party pair in downtown Tampa to being a settled married couple in rural NC with a 17 month old. We wouldn't change a thing.

Another anniversary tradition for us is to drink champagne in our wedding flutes (we don't get many opportunities to bust those out, and they are lovely as well.) This year we forgot to toast in the flutes, but as Brian's birthday is the day after our anniversary, we had a special occasion to toast the next night too.

Back to our dinner out though. It was pretty funny- my husband is a teacher who wears a suit and tie to work because he likes to be professional. He was still wearing his suit when we went to dinner, and I wore a dress I finished sewing the day before from Simplicity 3463 circa early 1960s.

We got a lot of funny looks and stares for being formally dressed! It didn't bother me any- I guess I still believe that one cannot really be overdressed. How are you supposed to dress to go out for dinner on your wedding anniversary? I know many vintage seamstress/bloggers have lamented the demise of regular formal attire, and it does appear that nice jeans and a black shirt are the new version of "dressy." I don't really care either way what other people wear, but for me it is hard not to sew pretty things, and once you sew them, you have to wear them, no?

We like to snap a family photo whenever we are dressed well at the same time

LOVE!

And my husband snapped a few pics of the dress for me to share....

Gotta get some use from these heels before Labor Day, har de har! 

I don't know why I like to show the hem lace...it's just so pretty!

Ever since I read about Amy's Swirl Dress Project on Sewing through the Motions, I have badly wanted a back wrap dress pattern to make my own (Hey! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!) Now I have one! Dresses are all about how you feel wearing them, and I must say I felt really good in this one. If you sew or are interested in vintage sewing, I am posting more on the sewing process at Sew Retro.