07 November 2009

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:


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?

2 comments:

Patricia said...

1) Wear it every year on your wedding anniversary - this keeps you in shape and is a really good excuse to do the beauty parlour, get hair done, every year so you look gorgeous and he falls in love with you all over again.
2) Buy a dress model and exhibit it in a spare corner of the house.
3) Sell on TradeMe (EBay etc)
4) Either way you'll have to get it dry cleaned.
5) The skirt would make a lovely flounced curtain in a special place.
6) Talk nicely to your Mom about storing it!
I'll be interested in what others come up with. A friend of mine wore her wedding dress and her husband wore his suit at their 50th wedding anniversary. A good exercise in dieting and a strategically placed piece of fabric around the waist.

Janie said...

I love the tree skirt idea. However, my favorite idea is to bring/send it home and I will use it to make a beautiful quilt top!