DaBell, Yes there are folks that just watch for domains that they think would be worth something to come available, and then snatch them up. It looks like you lost it in September 2004. The .net address should be just fine, but you may want to consider using "yourname.com" also. I looked at your site as it was in June 04 (through archive.org) and saw that you didn't use the name makeup4brides to market yourself, just your name. Makeup4brides was only mentioned in the page title, but nowhere in the body of the site. I also did a quick search and saw that your site is listed on a lot of sites, with both your name and url. Your name is out there although the url is no longer working. You'll need to work at updating those links, by contacting the sites you're listed on.
Anyway, I could go on, but don't want to take up too much space here.