Cutting up the Wedding Dress...

[Bianca]

So I have this dress that I spent more on than what I spent on my first car and I only got to wear it once... it's all tucked away in a big, white box, not doing me a bit of good and taking up all kinds of space. I mentioned selling it, and my mom about had a cow. She's all sentimental and thinks I should save it for my future daughter. Rrright. And would I have worn your wedding dress, mother? Or mom, would you have worn your mother's? I love the idea, I really do... but I know that I'll keep that big 'ole dress for 30 years only to find out that my "future daughter" thinks it's hideous.

So yeah, my dilema is... what to do with that dress?! I love it, and I really don't want to sell it. So my thougt is this (please tell me if you think I'm nuts)... I think I want to cut it up and sew it into something else. Maybe a baby blanket (you know, for my future daughter) or maybe some pretty pillows for the bed. It's so friggen big, maybe I could make a duvet out of it. Any crafty suggestions? I'm open to anything!

Here's the dress:

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1240_7260jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1181_7190jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1179_7188jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1162_7168jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1014_7013jpg.jpg

[bubah21]

i don't think you sound crazy at all actually! i have been debating donating it on my one year anniversary (just to feel that i've kept it for a while), but even that i'm not sure yet. i agree that our daughters, neices, granddaughters will all want their own new dresses as we did/do.

i actually love the baby blanket idea!
i remember hearing a story once of someone who made a christening gown out of their grandmother's wedding dress. every baby in the family then wore it for their christening! in my family, all my sisters, brothers, and cousins (on mother's side) wore the same gown - boy or girl (my mother made it) . so something like that would be great!
you could also save the material for a communion gown, but then who knows if you'll only have boys!

you could start your own family tradition with the first day of your life together!! how sweet!!! i may just save mine now for something like this! :D

[bubah21]

then again...there's probably so much material you could make all three!!! lol

[LauraAA]

I have heard of people making christening gown's for their children out of their dress!

[bigbooby]

I have heard of people making christening gown's for their children out of their dress!

OOhhhhh ~ I like Laura's idea awesome !!!:D

[clorigroh]

ya know what's funny, my grandmother just found my old communion dress circa 1992 so it has big poofy sleeves and such. She thought my daughter would want to wear it for her communion and I said no probably not by then.

I think it's a great idea to turn your dress into a blanket, christening gown, or communion dress or all three. Hey, I played dress up in my mother's dress.

[anschuier]

Donate it to Bride's Against Breast Cancer! Don't hurt the Capri! Save the Capri!

edit: okay, never mind. I didn't read your whole post. yes, a baby blanket is great!

[SoonToBeWed]

How about some pretty curtains or something like that for the house.

[bigbooby]

Now What?

I hate the idea of spending money on a dress that I only wore one day. I don't want to sell it, but I will never wear it again. I would like to keep it, perhaps make a keepsake out of it. Does anyone have any ideas as to what to do with the dress after the wedding?

Sharing Your Gift of Love

Here are a few suggestions on how to utilize your wedding gown:

If you have the heart to do this (and yes, it involves scissors) cut your gown into fabric squares and turn it into a beautiful heirloom wall or bed quilt. Leftover pieces can be used as "matting" for your favorite wedding photos and scrapbook projects. You can turn your veil into sachets for your drawers, baskets and closets.


My favorite suggestion is donating the gown to someone who is truly in need. If you don't know that special bride-to-be, try to contact a church or charitable organization and ask them if they know of such a situation. What a beautiful gift of love to share, allowing someone else the opportunity to look beautiful on the day that they only dreamed possible. Priceless gift!

From Wedding Day to Birthday

On an HGTV show, I saw a decorator make a skirt for a baby bassinet out of a wedding dress. I thought that was a wonderful idea.
Sharon

Donate for the Good of Others

For my wedding, I wanted "that special dress," so I made the perfect one for me. This also helped me keep costs in line with my budget as a new member of the workforce. After the wedding, the fabric shop I spent a lot of time at (wonderful source of advice and ideas) displayed my dress for others to see. I had the dress cleaned and preserved in the "memory box," and it has moved with my husband and I for the past 25 years. Finally, I realized I no longer needed to save it and found a website, www.makingmemories.org, that accepted it as a donation. This organization uses proceeds from selling wedding gowns to support women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.


A "Bear"-y Sweet Idea

My mother-in-law did something unique with her wedding dress and her mother's wedding dress. Someone she knows from church makes bears out of old clothing such as wedding dresses. And for Christmas in 2003, she had this lady make five of these bears for all of her children and attached to each bear was a poem. Then for Valentines Day this year, she gave everyone a bear made out of great grandma's wedding dress and a poem was attached to this bear as well. I think this was a great idea!

Start a Family Tradition

I know a woman who cut the skirt off her wedding dress and used it as a beautiful skirt under the Christmas tree. It may seem a bit of a sacrifice, but it will get "worn" every year and become part of the family's traditions.

Six Creative Suggestions

A wedding dress is a very special dress for any bride. Not wanting to part with it is a normal reaction. My suggestions would be:

Make a christening outfit for your children. Make a beautiful gown, utilizing all the pearls, or a simple one that could be worn by either a boy or girl. Make two hats, one for a boy and one for a girl. Be sure to have the baby's name and birth date embroidered on the gown.

Make a pillow for your bed, using the fabric from the dress, and embroider your wedding date, bride's name, groom's name, and any other pertinent information.

Create a "something old" hankie with lace attached for your daughter to carry. You can also do a square with your wedding date on it and your son's wedding date. This is something he can tuck inside his tux, and have a token of memory from his Mom.

Create a Ring Barer's pillow for your daughter or for your son.

Make Christmas ornaments in a Victorian Style for the children, making sure your wedding date and names are embroidered on them.

Create a shadow box, using a piece of the dress, a photo, the jewelry, your garter, and any other important things that you want to cherish and pass on to your children. If there are more than one child, you may want to make one for each of your children.

Act of Love

My Mother and Grandmother do something very kind with donated wedding dresses. They use the fabric to sew very tiny baby outfits for the local hospitals. These outfits are for stillbirth babies. Without these precious small outfits, the babies would be placed in their grieving parents' arms in the hospital t-shirt and diaper and wrapped in a blanket. The outfits are beautiful. They make dresses like Christening gowns and buntings for little boys with tiny bonnets. It is such an act of love!

Creative Pass Down

When my daughters got married, I took lace from my dress and trimmed out their shoes (white tennis shoes) for the reception. They looked so cute and were more comfortable than the dressy shoes they wore for the ceremony.

Make an Heirloom for Future Generations

My mother (84) had a beautiful wedding dress stored in her hope chest. Her children were in their 50s and no one had worn the dress after her. I recently took the dress to a tailor who took some of the material and made a christening gown for my mother to give to her new great grandchild. It was a little pricey, but the gown was an antique and now the christening gown can be passed down through the generations. We have packed the christening gown away, with a scrapbook of pictures of my mother's wedding and her great grandson's christening.

Multiplying the Memories

My wedding was more than 30 years ago and my gown, properly cleaned and stored, is nevertheless turning yellow in its box. Had I known then what I know now, I'd have been a bit more creative about how to preserve a keepsake. The biggest hurdle is getting past the idea of "destroying" something that we spent all that money on and think of it as multiplying the memories instead. Here are a couple of my ideas for your newlywed reader.

A talented seamstress/crafter friend could have created my gown in miniature to be framed in a shadow box and enjoyed every day instead of hiding it in a closet. A barter arrangement might make the work more affordable. With remaining fabric pieces, it would have been sweet to have small pillows and/or photo albums made to give for special gifts to my children on their weddings or, these many years later, to the grandchildren. It would have been lovely to have a vanity mirror padded and framed with parts of that dress or a collage made with wedding photos, dried flowers from the bouquet, and bits of trim from the gown.

The fabric from my gown may be too fragile at this point to do some of these things that require sewing, but cutting and gluing is still in the realm and it's never too late for the memory of that day to brighten every day!

[nicola191079]

Helooo...

My SIL had the bottom of her wedding dress made into a christening gown,, which all three of her children have worn,, she kept the bodice,, so she still has something to keep...

I thaught that was a lovely idea, and is probably what I will do with mine :)

Nic

[bigbooby]

So I have this dress that I spent more on than what I spent on my first car and I only got to wear it once... it's all tucked away in a big, white box, not doing me a bit of good and taking up all kinds of space. I mentioned selling it, and my mom about had a cow. She's all sentimental and thinks I should save it for my future daughter. Rrright. And would I have worn your wedding dress, mother? Or mom, would you have worn your mother's? I love the idea, I really do... but I know that I'll keep that big 'ole dress for 30 years only to find out that my "future daughter" thinks it's hideous.

So yeah, my dilema is... what to do with that dress?! I love it, and I really don't want to sell it. So my thougt is this (please tell me if you think I'm nuts)... I think I want to cut it up and sew it into something else. Maybe a baby blanket (you know, for my future daughter) or maybe some pretty pillows for the bed. It's so friggen big, maybe I could make a duvet out of it. Any crafty suggestions? I'm open to anything!

Here's the dress:

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1240_7260jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1181_7190jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1179_7188jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1162_7168jpg.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j69/binkusbianicus/Pro%20Wedding%20Pics/Bead_1014_7013jpg.jpg

B.

My dress is very similar to your's .....so this was good to start, now I have some thinking to do :)

[kobfield2007]

I've heard that the christening gown is a tradition. My mom jokingly asked if I wanted to wear hers, and I very excitedly declined. She wore lace sleeves in July. Ew.... Plus I hate sleeves. So yeah, I agree, don't save it for your daughter. However, if you do, you can always say, here's my dress, make it as you wish. Sometimes I wish I'd done that with my moms (hence yanking the sleeves off). But I loooooove my dress. LOL I think a christening gown and blanket are good ideas.

[karentinks]

Trash the dress! Trash the dress! (http://www.trashthedress.com)

And from what I've heard, getting it cleaned after trashing leaves it good as new, so you can still turn it into something like a christening gown :)

[bubah21]

wow...my veil would make enough sachets to keep a small country smelling sweet! lol:p

these are all great ideas ladies...(i forgot how much fun this site can be!...work's been insane and i haven't gotten on in a while)

[futts5]

I am taking a piece from my friends SAME DRESS and using it as the small fabric in the back of her shadow box. Letting the little "jewel" show too where it was in the pick ups. It's a SUPER neat way to keep a piece of the dress and use the rest for something else. Just painful to cut it!! haha

I also think her grandmother made like 10 hankies out of her old dress and Jen used one on her wedding day which was sooooo special to her!!

THEN with all that left over material ... make some fun sentimental things. I think a pillow for your bed would be stunning!! Have some pretty wedding vow embordiered into it ... your wedding day ... or a monogram. It's neat to sit in the middle of your bed!

[annaromero]

WOW. I love those trash the dress pictures. I think I may end up doing that on the honeymoon.

[ChrisandAmanda]

FMIL made her wedding dress into christenning gowns for her children.

[ISIDEJOSH]

wow really pretty photos i may to it on the 2nd wedding cause i spent a lot on the dress!!!

[Bianca]

Neat ideas, thanks girls! :) That Trash the Dress site is awesome! I'd totally do that, but I'd probably drown if I jumped into a lake with that dress on! LOL

I like that monogram idea, Futts. And that would work with whatever I do with it! And Meg, ya gotta keep yours and do something with it! Come visit and we can get crafty together! :)

[bubah21]

B i think you're right...I LOVE THAT WEBSITE...it totally makes me want to do something fun! ok so we all take (sadly) that dress off at the end of our big day. any of you wish you could wear it again? what about a one year trash the dress anniversary photo shoot with your hubby...i might just consider this! it would be such a fun way to celebrate our first anniversary and get some great crazy photos we'll never forget! :D then i can get it cleaned and if i haven't gone too far, decide to donate it or cut it up into something memorable....maybe visit B and make albumn covers of our anniversary photos together!

thank you for sharing that website tinks!

[msgoody2]

I'm actually gonna continue wearing the dress to different formal occasions. I think the train might become a shawl or something. Or something like that. We'll see.

[lovecat4984]

I love the idea that you are willing to tear it up to make something new. I think a Baby Blanket would be wonderful. My Grandmother is going to use my First Holy Communion Dress and is going to make our Ring Pillow out of it. I really have no use for the dress itself, when I decide to have children... it will be soo out of style. Also, my Grandmother will be making my Hanky out of my Baptism Dress and the same for my Mother and her Baptism Dress.... She doesn't know about it although she gave me permission to do whatever I wanted with it. I will be giving it to her as a gift.