I was in college. I had a girlfriend who knew about some of my desires.
She didn't know anything about my AB/DL aspects, she made it clear fairly early in our relationship she wasn't into that, it was one of the few kinks she was totally NOT into, before I even dared mention it. (We would later dabble with a number of other kinks, but that's another story for another day)
However, by luck, as we were opening up to each other and talking about our turn-ons and turn-offs, she apparently admitted she LOVED to see guys crossdress, and she'd had this fantasy of having a guy who was her boyfriend. . .and her girlfriend.
Well, I admitted to her that I'd been dabbling with crossdressing for years, that I wore panties most of the time, and had some other lingerie and a few skirts and dresses and such. The fact I had a mid-back length ponytail and was fairly thin helped my overall androgynous to somewhat feminine look.
Well, as we dated, she liked me dressing up a little more at a time. At first she was just happy that I wore panties and she'd ask me occasionally what color were mine today. I gave up wearing men's underwear altogether
Before long, we were going lingerie shopping for matching underclothes, and we developed this little ritual. Whenever she was picking me up for a date (she had a car, I didn't) she'd come in my apartment, flash her bra strap, I'd then flash my matching strap, she'd show me the waistband of her panties, I'd show her a matching waistband, and then she'd lift up her skirt or pants to show me her stockings, and I'd lift up my jeans to show I was in matching stockings myself (and we both had on matching garter belts). When we would sleep in the same bed, we were both in matching very feminine nighties.
She had me somewhat feminized in other ways. I always say down to pee, I used distinctly feminine deodorant and razors and such, and I always kept my legs shaved.
Eventually it got to the point that I was wearing androgynous but female clothes most of the time. Women's jeans, women's polo shirts, stuff that came from the women's clothing section but didn't scream "female". Sometimes while out together, we would be mistaken for two women, more than once we were greeted as "Ladies". I loved it.
I wasn't officially "out", but my friends apparently suspected it. Fortunately I had pretty open minded friends who didn't care if I blurred the lines about genders.
Well, I proposed marriage to her in the spring of '01, and she accepted. We made plans for being married in the summer of '02, after our graduation.
In the discussion of our wedding, we decided on two weddings. The first would be a modest affair for our families and more distant friends where I would wear a tuxedo and she'd wear a dress.
However, the "real" wedding was going to be something better the next day. Over several months, I came out to my friends as transgendered. They didn't care. I told them in the context that we were getting married, as two brides, and I didn't want them to freak out at seeing me in a wedding dress, and I would appreciate if they'd treat me as a bride, and not a groom. I would look in the mirror and tell myself that this time next year, I was going to be her wife. Her Wife. HER WIFE. I would be a bride, not a groom.
She made it clear that she saw me as basically a woman who had male parts between her legs, not as a man, and she wanted to marry me as woman, and to talk to me as and relate to me as another woman. It didn't matter what plumbing I had, she said she knew I was a girl at heart, and that girl in me was who she loved.
We called around and found a bridal boutique in our city that was willing to fit me for a wedding dress. We decided on our matching wedding dresses, had bought all the foundation garments and such for it, and had started to make plans for our two-brides wedding. This was before same-sex marriage was a big thing, so finding wedding items for the marriage of two brides wasn't exactly easy.
Then it all fell apart.
9/11 happened. My fiancee took it kinda different than most people. She got angry at people "losing their minds because some buildings fell down" and went on about how people were overreacting. On 9/11 itself was the day she found out her graduation application was approved, and she was angry that people cared more for the attacks on America than the fact she learned she was graduating. Over the next few months, our relationship got increasingly rocky. It was clear we had serious relationship problems, but we were still married.
The last time we spent together was on New Years Eve that year. A few weeks later, she called me up to break up with me over the phone.
I wasn't her fiancee anymore, I wouldn't be a bride or a wife. Broke my heart.
For a while after that I would still sometimes put on all my bridal lingerie and my wedding dress and pose, and since I didn't need to hide my AB/DL side I sometimes had bridal diapers on underneath the dress.
Eventually I sold it on Craigslist when money got tough.
So, that's how I ALMOST became a bride.
Postscript: She came out as a lesbian a couple of years later, moved to a state where same sex marriage was legal and got married to another woman.
