Wedding bells may ring again for these dresses

Teresa Ackerman had all the love she needed after six years of marriage. What she wanted was a little more bling.

“Honey,” she told her husband, Rick, “I want a bigger ring.” By bigger, she didn’t mean larger – she meant bigger stones. She wanted to upgrade her center diamond by a half carat. Considering the ring already had been upgraded once with tiny little side diamonds known as baguettes and the center stone already was as large as a shirt button, Rick just wanted to know how they were going to pay for it.

“I’ll sell my wedding dress,” Teresa said, which would cover the down payment for the ring that the jewelry store already had lent her for 90 days just to try on.

“No,” Rick said. “I don’t want you to sell it.” That seemed surprising coming from a guy whose friends had laughed long and hard when they received the Ackermans’ wedding invitations in the mail. His sentimentality surprised his wife, but there was enough of the old bachelor left in Rick to keep him from elaborating on exactly why he didn’t want the dress sold. The wedding dress appeared in the Sunday classified ads on June 4.

Wedding dresses don’t appear in the classifieds often. Mostly they appear in closets and attics beside pants we someday hope to fit in again. Only 40 brides hocked their dresses in the newspaper last year. June 4, however, there were three.

Teresa Ackerman’s Southern Belle gown topped the list. She threw in a flower-girl dress to sweeten the deal and offered them both for $650. It was a dress the Spokane Valley woman had found in a bridal catalog and admired before she met Rick. When she first spotted the faux-pearled gown with six layers of ruffles, Teresa was involved with a different man, one who swore he’d never marry, which broke her heart.

Kara Friberg’s dress was second. It was a gorgeous Maggie Sottero strapless dress with lavender beads. It was only the third dress Friberg had tried on while preparing for her wedding, but it fit well. She’d planned to give it, someday, to a daughter, but the plan changed after she gave birth to a boy last year. A $1,000 dress was on sale now for $625.

The third dress was Joscelyn Ward’s. It was a slender mermaid-style gown Ward had slipped out of just two months ago. Keeping it just didn’t fit Ward’s no-frills nature. Her wedding band isn’t even gold, just a silver circle uninterrupted by trielles, baguettes or even a solitaire. Engraved inside the band are three ingredients Ward said should be enough for any matrimony.

“Faith, love and hope,” Ward said. “That’s what it takes to make any marriage work. You have to keep faith and hope and love each other.” Not to mention that it would be nice to have an extra $500.

A week has gone by, and none of the three women has sold her dress.

Maybe no one wants to slip on someone else’s wedding gown, someone else’s magic moment, Friberg suggested.

It would be fine with Rick Ackerman if the telephone didn’t ring. There’s a smile on his face when he talks about Teresa, about how she crashed his bachelor pad seven years ago, about how the lonely 12-pack in his refrigerator suddenly was surrounded by groceries and how his dresser magically filled with clean clothes.

The Ackermans dated only four months before deciding to get married and exchanged vows only 10 months after becoming an item. They might have waited longer had Rick not suggested Teresa just close her eyes and put her finger on the kitchen calendar; December was just one square down and to the right.

Rick’s hope, which he kept under wraps as Teresa proposed selling the gown, was to see his bride in that white sash and pearls one more time.

“I’m a little sentimental that way, I guess,” Rick said.

“My thought was: If the dress still fits after 10 years, she can put it on and we’ll get married again.”