Well, I'm halfway there!  We've done half of my head and it's already 23 dreads which took a number of hours to do, so decided to take a break and finish up another day.

What we did was backcombing using salt water as an accelerant.  Varied widths instead of parting... I decided I wanted a more free-flowing look rather than a manicured type of look.  So the widths vary a lot... some dreads being as little as 1/4 the size of others.  I did most of them and my husband did a few in the back that I couldn't reach.

This is the first four, when we were just getting the hang of it in the underside where they'd be well hidden:



This is when I had 10-12 or so done:


Since we decided to take a break halfway through, I have my "before" and "after" pictures in the same timeframe.  This is the 23 dreads on the left side of my head:


This is the undreaded right side of my head:


This is the back of my head showing both dreaded and undreaded sides:


I've been reading and thinking about this for some time... my hair is very thick and curly and knots easily even when heavily conditioned.  I think I shall dread easily, so I'm not putting tons of energy into it.  My dreads are not terribly tight yet, so I didn't lose much length.

I am planning my maintenance scheme as continuing use of the salt water and lots of palm rolling and twisting.  I can see already that I shall be paying a lot of attention to the tips until they're locked. 

My "residue-free" shampoo shall be my homemade soap, lathered into the scalp and rinsed through the dreads.  Once they lock, I'll do an occassional deep cleansing via a soak in rosemary tea and start conditioning via a spray of diluted aloe gel.

I married very late in life, I was almost 40.  So... I had that many more years of fantasizing about the perfect wedding.  I was going to wear this utterly gorgeous Victorian dress that has been in my head since I was a small child.

Somehow, I kind of forgot all that when I met my husband.  For me, it wasn't the commercial aspects that were so discouraging, although I am a very anti-consumerist type of person.  For me, the problem was my wedding fantasies were just that - *my* fantasies.  And a wedding isn't about anything of *mine*, but about starting to think in terms of *ours*.

That is what bugs me so much about a lot of women planning weddings; it's almost as if the groom is just another accessory - like the catering or flowers.  Does the groom's hair color go with your bridesmaid colors? 

We decided to go to New Hope, PA to shop for our wedding outfits.  New Hope is full of little one-of-a-kind shops of all sorts.  And yes, I did find the most gorgeous Victorian dress at a RenFaire shop.  And I didn't buy it.  My husband is kind of a casual type of guy - there is nothing he would be comfortable wearing that would go with that dress.  And I kinda wanted the husband more than the dress. 

We wound up buying our clothing at a wonderful Indian shop where they were utterly thrilled to be outfitting us for a wedding. 

It's five years later and I'm not at *all* disappointed that I didn't have my fantasy wedding.  Because I have my reality husband, and he's worth a bazillion times more than any fantasy I ever dreamt of.

For me, wedding fantasies are something that grows out of having watched all those Disney movies as a child.  The princess always has such gorgeous dresses at the end of the movie when the wedding happens.  But for me... it turned out as an adult, I'm much more interested in the bit Disney didn't show... the "living happily ever after" part of the story.

Here are a few of my wedding pictures.  Note that the most utterly gorgeous thing in these pics is the mind and heart of the groom, who adores me and puts up with me and is everything I could ever have wanted in a husband and a partner - and my best friend.

Before the wedding:



During the wedding:



After the wedding: