Prophetess Juanita Bynum held her 50th birthday bash last Friday night at the Georgian Ballroom in the Biltmore Hotel. All that ghettofabuless-ness was going on downstairs as I was upstairs in the same building during the B.o.B. listening party. I have never seen so many church folks in one place…well except at church. I bet you’re wondering why Juanita’s wearing that dayum wedding dress aren’t you? Well…apparently she explained to Essence that for her 50th birthday she was gonna face her fears and do things a bit differently:

One of the greatest moments of my life was the day that I married. That day was supposed to be the defining moment of my life when I would show the world that I had stepped into my womanhood. It was always the original intention of my dress and I refused to let it not be because it was made for me. So I wore it because I felt like someone had robbed me of that right. I waited so many years to walk in it and I wanted to give the dress the honor for which it had been made. My father told me to always face your fears head-on, and since this was the dress that is connected to the incident for which the whole world remembered me, I said that if I’m going to cross over I have to go back and stand in the same place.

In case you’re wondering, Bynum’s dress is the same one worn in her $1.2 million dollar wedding to Thomas Weeks, the same dude who beat her down in a parking lot then said he was the abused spouse. *sigh* Anway…the dress, valued at $65,000, is adorned with Swarovski crystals and took nine months to make. Bynum says she had to alter it since she’s lost 2 dress sizes since the wedding. She also made her own skirt to celebrate her half a century on earth. The front of the skirt consisted of photos of her; the right side of the skirt had photos of her mom; and the left and back were of her dad.  Photos below:

Check out her full explanation over at Essence.