I had to collect my own flowers!

I had a church wedding, and I just bought a costume because I thought well I could use that afterwards — but if you buy a white dress you can’t use it again, you’d just have to put it in the wardrobe, and I couldn’t afford to waste the coupons.

I had to go and collect my own flowers on the morning of my wedding as Mum couldn’t do it. We all had flowers.

All my sisters came, my parents and my three brothers too. The wedding presents weren’t anything like you get now though, but we didn’t expect too much.

From then on, I went to live at my sister Lily’s house. We stayed there until Walter got called up. We married in the October and he got called up in the December.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the BBC Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Dorothy Cottis and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of Dot's stories:

• Doing a man’s job
• Red skies for miles
• I must have looked nuts!
• ”Boom!”
• They went to work in slippers
• ”Ping Ping”
• You had to have a laugh

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