I Married My Best Friend in a Twelve Dollar Thrift Store Dress

I Married My Best Friend in a Twelve-Dollar Thrift Store Dress

I married Daniel that morning.

There was no expensive venue, no fancy reception, and no designer wedding dress.

I wore a twelve-dollar dress from a thrift store, and after the courthouse ceremony, Daniel and I sat in the corner of a cheap diner eating cold fries and burgers.

Between us, we had only forty-two dollars left in our joint account.

But I didn't care.

I had married my best friend.

Daniel, however, seemed distracted.

He kept touching the inside pocket of his brown jacket as though he were making sure something was still there.

I tried to make him laugh by talking about the courthouse clerk, who had barely looked up while stamping our marriage license.

Daniel smiled.

Then he looked at my new silver wedding ring.

It was slightly too loose.

He promised we'd have it resized when we could afford the five-dollar fee.

Then he looked at my dress.

“You deserve better than a twelve-dollar dress, Savannah,” he told me.

I reminded him that I had chosen it because I liked it.

Money didn't matter to me.

Being with him did.

But Daniel still seemed nervous.

I noticed a folded piece of paper sticking out from inside his jacket.

There was blue ink on the corner, but he quickly shifted his jacket when I looked at it.

Then I noticed people staring.

An older couple nearby kept looking at Daniel's worn clothes, oil-stained boots, and rough hands.

I reached across the table for his hand.

He pulled away.

That worried me.

Then I mentioned the phone call my mother had made that morning.

She had contacted Connor, a wealthy man connected to my family, and tried to convince me to cancel the wedding.

She believed Connor was the better choice.

She even warned me that marrying a mechanic like Daniel would leave me living in a trailer park by winter.

To her, Connor had money, status, and connections.

Daniel had none of those things.

But he had always been there for me.

Still, when I mentioned my mother's warning, Daniel's expression changed.

He became quiet.

His jaw tightened.

And his hand moved toward the mysterious paper inside his jacket again.

I didn't know what was written on that piece of paper.

I didn't know why Daniel had been hiding it.

And I certainly didn't know that the secret inside that jacket was about to turn our simple courthouse wedding into something neither of us could have imagined.