What do I do with my dress?

Photos by Evantide Photography. Cropping by ALKS.

My wedding dress is still hanging...ok, jammed...in the closet in my craft room. I'm still undecided on what I should do with it now that our wedding day has come and gone.

I love the idea of doing a trash-the-dress photo shoot, especially something fun like snowboarding or SCUBA diving. However, it seems a shame to just destroy the dress, and would I just throw it away after the photo shoot? While I'm not crazy about totally destroying my dress, I'm also unsure about cleaning and preserving my dress. It would need a lot of cleaning after being stepped on by my loving groom and being dragged around Kerry Park and Gas Works Park. Even if I do preserve it, is it ever going to be put to use again? I'm certain that any daughter I might have is not going to want to wear my dress. If I'm only going to keep the dress in a box for the rest of my life, why should I spend more than half of what the dress cost and use environmentally harmful chemicals to preserve it? I am totally willing to donate it to someone who can't afford a dress. But, let's face it: my dress wasn't that expensive, and it's going to cost someone almost as much to clean and alter the dress as it cost to buy the dress new.

I've heard some pretty creative ideas for the dress, like making a Christmas tree skirt or two out of it. As much as I loved the pick-up skirt on my dress, I'm not sure that I want a "pick-up" tree skirt. I've also heard that it could be made into a christening gown for our future children. For a number of reasons, this isn't really in the running. This morning, Wedinator gave me another creative idea for my dress:

Source

In all seriousness, I know that I need to do something with my dress soon before it starts to yellow. At this point, I'm seriously considering cutting out some of the best parts of the dress to save (for what, I have no idea), and throwing away the rest, or else donating the dress. Help! What did you do with your wedding dress?