The Universe Was Arranging It The Whole Time
I have a friend who found her wedding dress the moment she put it on…the first bridal shop and the very first dress.
I was there. I watched it happen. She stepped out of the dressing room and something in the air just shifted…and before I even knew I was going to, I was crying. Because it was so obvious. So completely, undeniably right. The dress hadn't just fit her body. It had found her.
I never forgot that moment.
And when Roger proposed and the reality of finding my own dress began to sink in, I carried that memory with me like a quiet hope. Maybe it would happen that way for me too. Maybe I would just know.
It didn't happen that way. Not at first.
The Search
I started last month with my dearest friend and Maid of Honor, Echo. I was hopeful. Open. Ready.
And I liked some of the dresses. I liked certain things about dresses. I could point to a silhouette and say yes, or a neckline and say no. But I couldn't find the words for what I actually wanted… the full picture that lived somewhere in my imagination but refused to translate into bridal vocabulary. The stylists were kind. They tried. Echo was patient and loving. But dress after dress, salon after salon, I kept leaving with information packets instead of a yes.
One dress followed me home a little. I'd think about it from time to time and wonder if it would do.
Would do.
That's not exactly the energy you want to bring to your wedding dress.
Echo and I went again recently… two days, multiple appointments, a fairy-like boutique in Glendale, a chaotic salon in Pasadena with a dingy fitting room and, beyond it, a creepy back room where an older man sat in his white t-shirt watching TV like I'd wandered into someone's living room by mistake.
Dress after dress. A few maybes.
I began to wonder what was wrong with me.
I lay in bed that night in Pasadena and made a quiet peace with the possibility that maybe I'd go back to one of the very first dresses I'd tried. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe the movie moment just wasn't going to be mine.
The Warehouse
The final appointment was deep in Downtown Los Angeles. The kind of block where the buildings around you are spray painted and industrial and have nothing to do with lace or tulle or any of it. I wasn't expecting much. Probably more of the same.
But when we walked through the door, it was like stepping into an oasis. Beautifully appointed bridal suites. Snacks and water waiting for us. A sweet young woman named Hannah who actually listened when I tried, again, to explain the vision I couldn't quite put into words.
Echo and I sat together on the little loveseat outside my suite while Hannah disappeared to pull dresses.
And then the first one was brought in and hung on the rack.
My eyes started to water and I didn't understand why. I hadn't even touched it. I hadn't tried it on. It was just hanging there…the exact color I'd been searching for, with a simplistic elegance I had never been able to articulate but recognized instantly, the way you recognize a song you haven't heard in years.
I made excuses for the tears. Maybe it was just exhaustion from these last two days of the search.
Hannah finished setting up five dresses and asked which one I wanted to start with.
I think you already know.
She helped me into it, zipped and clipped everything into place, and opened the curtain.
I looked in the mirror.
And I just started crying.
Not a polite tear or two. Real, unexpected, overwhelming crying. The kind that comes from somewhere you didn't know was waiting.
Echo cried. Hannah cried. The three of us stood there in this beautiful Los Angeles warehouse crying over a wedding dress…and it was one of the most perfect moments of my life.
I tried on three others, just to be sure. They were lovely. Genuinely lovely.
Just not the kind of lovely that makes me cry.
And Then The Universe Showed Off
We put the first dress back on.
Hannah handed me a faux bouquet and lined me up at one end of a long stretch of open space… and as I began to walk, the music changed.
It was my processional song. The one I had chosen months before. The one that makes me cry every single time I hear it.
I don't know how. I don't know why that song was playing in that place at that moment. I just know that it was, and that I was walking toward Echo in my dress holding flowers and crying, and the whole thing felt so orchestrated… so far beyond coincidence…that I stopped trying to explain it.
I stepped back onto the pedestal. Echo came toward me, her phone in her hand, more tears streaming down her face.
She held up the screen so I could see the time.
11:11.
Before my mom died, I told her I would always know she was there when I saw 11:11, or when 11s appeared. It was our signal. Our language across whatever distance existed between us now. And November 11th — 11/11…was her birthday.
She was there. Right there in that warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles, at that exact moment — she was there.
And then my phone lit up with a new message. Also at 11:11.
Roger. Sending red hearts and kisses.
My fiancé, who had no idea what was happening in that room, reached for me at the exact moment my mom did.
I had no words for any of it. I still don't, really. But I didn't need them.
When We Stopped Forcing
There's something else I want to share…something Roger said recently that has stayed with me.
Roger and I were navigating some of the bigger decisions around our wedding. We'd had a more elaborate plan at one point…something we'd been holding onto, trying to make work, turning over and over looking for the right angle.
And then one day Roger said something that stopped me.
He said…when we can pause and allow all the pieces to gently land when they're ready to, we don't have to work so hard. The right answer isn't always the first one we reach for. Sometimes if you sit with it, release the grip a little, something better arrives. Something that feels easy and right and divinely orchestrated in a way the forced version never could have been.
He was talking about wedding planning.
But he was also talking about everything.
What This Has To Do With You
If you are someone who is looking for love…really looking, trying hard, showing up on the apps and the setups and the well-meaning introductions from friends…I want to offer you something gently.
What if the trying hard is part of what's in the way?
Not because effort doesn't matter. Not because you should stop showing up. But because there is a difference between being open and available…and gripping and forcing. Between trusting that it's coming and white-knuckling every almost into something it was never meant to be.
I couldn't find the words for my dress. I tried salon after salon. I lay in bed that night wondering why it wasn’t happening. And then I decided to release my beliefs of how I thought it was supposed to go, and the next day, it found me. In a warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles.
With my mom watching.
And Roger sending hearts.
The universe had been arranging it the whole time. I just needed to get out of the way long enough to let it arrive.
Your love story is being arranged too. Maybe not in the way you imagined. Maybe not on the timeline you planned. But it is being arranged.
And sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is pause. Breathe. Allow the pieces to land gently where they're meant to.
Trust that what is truly meant for you already knows how to find you.
Just like the dress did.
Just like Roger did.
Just like love always does, when we finally stop forcing and start allowing.
If something in this stirred something in you…that quiet feeling that maybe your love story is closer than it seems…we’d love to support you in getting truly ready to receive it.
Our free Find Love Again guide is a beautiful place to begin.
And when you're ready to go deeper, our Clarity Session and 6-Week Manifestationship® Program are here for you.
When you're ready…and you'll know when you are…here are your next steps:
With love,
Kim and Roger
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