A military mom and her Navy husband struggled to make their arrangement work. As the parents of three children, two girls and a boy, they had a lot to deal with. And when the time came for the parents to finally tie the knot and solidify their family on paper, their two-year-old son made a request that his mother could not refuse, so she let her toddler son wear a dress to her wedding.

Mom wrote, “We are a strong family unit and work hard at it. My husband is in the Navy, and I am self-employed as a gentle sleep consultant. We share care of my 6- and 7-year-old girls with their dad, who is an essential family member for us, and our 2-year-old son lovingly calls him “Grandad” — but that’s another story.”

The son became obsessed with all girl things just before his second birthday when he fell in love with Minnie Mouse. He began wanting to wear “girls” clothes and would get upset if his parents tried to dress him in something more traditionally masculine.

“His sister has a red polka dot Minnie Mouse dress, and one day about eight months ago, he brought it to me asking to wear it. I laughed and said, ‘little mate, dresses aren’t for boys.’ But then I stopped and questioned that. Why can’t he wear it? Who is he hurting? Who makes these rules anyway?”

The boy simply likes to wear pretty things even though it does not match the gender of his birth.

“When his sisters and dad saw him, we all just laughed and thought it was cute. He has no idea he is a boy yet and doesn’t bear the weight of society’s expectations. My biggest concern wasn’t anything to do with society. It was just that he would trip over something because the dress was quite long.”

For their wedding, mom bought her son a suit so he could match his dad. However, the little boy was furious that he was expected to wear anything to the wedding other than a dress.

Mom told CafeMom, “From the look of sheer delight when he saw his sisters’ dresses for the day, I knew then we would most likely have to get him a dress to wear.”

His parents gave the boy a choice between a suit and a dress. He immediately fell in love with the pretty dress, so it was decided that he would wear a dress to the wedding.

“We didn’t want any of the children to feel uncomfortable, so we let them tell us what the boundaries were. My preference was to have both girls as ring bearers as I didn’t have any bridesmaids, but my oldest daughter felt like that was too much pressure, so I respected that.”

Mom added, “You see, our beautiful sweet boy is 2. He doesn’t yet bear the weight of society’s expectations or gender roles. He doesn’t understand why he can’t wear what he wants, and to be honest, I couldn’t find a valid reason why he couldn’t wear a dress either! The last thing we wanted on the wedding day was to have a really unhappy toddler that was miserable and crying.”