Woman, 77, marries herself in wedding of dreams and finally ‘feels pretty’

A77-year-old woman who says that her first marriage was “doomed” from the very start, has now begun all over again, saying “I do” to herself in a full-blown wedding. Dorothy ‘Dottie’ Fideli donned a white wedding gown with a veil to marry herself, having previously believed it might be “too late” to have the wedding of her dreams. The mother-of-three previously tied the knot in a brief ceremony in 1965, after which her new husband went straight to work and she went home. The couple divorced nine years later, and as Dorothy herself put it, she’s now been with herself for 40 years. Reminiscing about her first wedding in an interview with Today, Dottie remarked: “I wore a black dress, so I was doomed before I got started”. Dottie, who lives at the O’Bannon Terrace retirement community in Goshen, Ohio, first got the idea to marry herself from a friend who’d seen a similar ceremony take place on a TV talk show. She explained: “I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not? I’m going to marry myself.” Dottie’s daughter Donna Pennington thought it was a wonderful idea. She helped sort out all the cooking ahead of the big day and decorated the community room of her mother’s retirement home. Guests were served slices from a twotiered white cake patterned with red roses, plus heart-shaped cookies and finger sandwiches shaped like wedding bells. Dottie said: “I told my daughter, I said, ‘This is the best thing that I’ve ever had, outside of having you kids. This is what I’ve always wanted and I’m so happy that you (gave) it to me.”