What did you do with yours ? What did you wish you’d done ?
Leave it hidden away in a box/wardrobe somewhere ? Wear it on your 25th anniversary ? Dye it and wear it to up-market events ? Sell it ? Give it away ?
Lucky lucky me I got married in September in a truly gorgeuous dress (the husband ain’t bad either ). Mum had done enough nagging to ensure she got taken to be cleaned less than 48 hours later, the red wine stains and general grubbiness are gone and she’s back at home with me but what do I do now ?
We live in a small flat (although obviously hope to move somewhere bigger one day) so storage would be lying in a box. I can’t recall the last time I had to ‘dress up’ - black tie dos aren’t a part of our lives.
If I knew how to link to a photo I would but until said wonderful husband gets home you’ll have to do with this vague description… “off-white”, floor length designed to be worn with a hooped petticoat, fitted bodice with a slightly assymetrical décoltté, from the front you think it’s a halter neck but it has a full back with buttons running down next to an invisible zip. In short a wedding dress, I suspect that even with a vibrant coloured stole there would still be a nuptial whiff about her. So comfortable and easy to wear though !
In short advice needed lady Dopers - although any husbands with views you’re welcome too.
I was ready to throw mine in my box of costumes when we got home. My husband insisted I take it to the cleaners to be preserved. So I did. It’s sitting in a box under our bed collecting dust.
I’m keeping mine, in a cedar chest, because it was made for me by a friend. There really isn’t anything to be done with it, though, unless my daughter wants to wear it.
I used to have a link (have to look for it) to the site of a woman who makes quilts & coverlets out of wedding gowns. They were beautiful - tufted, beaded with any beadwork on the gown, lace trim, etc. Will look tonight.
Thanks Veuve_ClicquotNJ that sounds very interesting - altho’ I am in France …
The husband especailly likes the Christening gown idea. Altho’ I donate clothes reasonably regularly I think the charity shop/e-bay idea would be a sort of last resort fopr this dress, I’m not sure …
psycat90 & cher3 can you see yourselves ever wearing yours again ?
Unless you’re in the kind of family where daughter gets married in Grandma’s yellowed bridal dress, give it to a charity shop. Some dirt-poor girl will wear it to the prom or her own wedding. My wife made her own dress, and it’s in a box someplace, mouldering forever. What a waste.
Not unless we do some kind of renewing of the vows thing. It’s a white satin wedding dress and no amount of re-tailoring would be able to disguise that. Plus there’s the issue of about 10 pounds that wasn’t there 25 years ago. Maybe some day I’d feel comfortable just giving it away, but not yet.
My mom made hers into my Christening gown. Then a family friend made a porcelain doll version of me and the gown has been on the doll me ever since. My mom keeps the doll on her dresser- she loves it.
Eh, maybe. We got married in Las Vegas, so I got to wear my dress all night out and about after our ceremony and reception. It was pretty fun. It’s a pretty simple dress. Maybe if we go to Vegas and renew our vows for our 10th or 25th anniversary. I might have it cut short and dyed a different color and wear it for that.
I don’t really know. You can see a picture of it (and the hubby!) here.
My mom got married in a beautiful orange sari. 17 years later, I was performing on stage regularly (Kathak - if you don’t know what it is, go look it up!) and she made me a beautiful dress out of it to perform in.
I don’t plan to wear a white wedding gown. I’m going to have a mixed wedding, with a bright red or pink sari and then a green Chinese gown, and will probably do the same with both - have them re-made into something more useful or use them for something else.
One of the problems with a white wedding gown is everyone knows what it is in a Western country. I could wear the fanciest sari I own to an American party and I would only get stunned compliments, and no one thinking “How tacky, she’s wearing her wedding dress!”
That’s what I’m planning to do - but I’m only going to cut off the train to do it. My mom had it preserved for me, and now it’s sitting in the guest room in a box collecting dust. I want to do something with it that’s a little more meaningful.
(Now, who wants to tell my mother that I’m taking it out of the box eventually?)
My wife’s ended up in the back of a closet for about 25 years. Finally we were in a “lets get rid of some of this junk” mood one day. We were hauling things out and came upon it in a dry cleaners bag. Well it may have been in style in 1978, but nylon and polyester don’t seem to have the appeal today they once had. Several bags of stuff went to the Salvation Army, but we both agreed the wood stove was a better place for the old wedding dress, amazing how flammable that stuff was.
I didn’t have enough money to get my wedding dress cleaned and preserved after I got married in 1980. So, in honor of my 20th wedding anniversary, my husband and I planned this big beach party for our families and I went to get my dress cleaned…just to get it finally done. I had no great attachment to it; it was nice but no stunner. Anyway, I went back to the cleaners to pick it up before our party and it was gone. The cleaners couldn’t find it anywhere. I guess they gave the box it was in to someone else, or sold it, or threw it out, or just let it loose into the world somehow.
So I think of my dress as being off on an adventure. Someday, some one will open this dusty old box and find a vintage wedding dress. They won’t know whose it was, or where it came from. Maybe they’ll try to imagine what the girl was like who wore it, had she been happy, what happened to her, did she have children?
I think that’s cool. It’s like sending a little wee boat down the river into the future, not knowing where it will land.
). Mum had done enough nagging to ensure she got taken to be cleaned less than 48 hours later, the red wine stains and general grubbiness are gone and she’s back at home with me but what do I do now ?
