Picking out a wedding dress is no easy task. With thousands of beautiful dresses available to brides, the options are truly unlimited. Brides-to-be spend countless hours bent over magazines, searching online, and hunting down what will become "the" dress. But what to do with the dress after the wedding is often never thought about. The following ways to re-use the wedding dress deserve some consideration, offering ways to make new memories with one's wedding gown.
Preserving a Wedding Dress - An Old Tradition With a New Twist
Many people decide to preserve their wedding dress for their future daughter by choosing to use a dress preservation service. These services clean the dress with special chemicals that work to prevent yellowing of the fabric or deterioration of the delecate beading and lace. While that nostaligic ideal of seeing someone else where the dress is tempting, remember that most wedding dresses will be long past the time they were in style and won't be flattering for a future bride-to-be.
Using the fabric from the dress in other, more contemporary ways provides unlimited options. One such option is using the fabric to create a christening outfit for a future child of the bride and groom. Making the gown from the beautiful fabric of the wedding dress encompasses the symbolism of the love from which the child was born. Embroidering a selection of fabric with the couples' name and wedding date, and then framing the fabric would make a beautiful momento for years to come. Yet another option is to start a family wedding quilt, and using a section from each family wedding dress to create a patchwork of wedding memories.
Donating the Dress to Charity
There are a handful of charities that welcome second-hand wedding dresses to help fund their projects. Some places, such as Goodwill, will simply resell the dress for a profit. Other charities, such as Making Memories, will take previously owned wedding gowns and resell them to brides. The profits from the resale of the dress go directly to help fight breast cancer. Regardless of which charity you choose, check with your tax advisor to see how much of the donation will be tax deductible. Charities are a great way to breathe new life into your old wedding dress. The monies made benefit those in need and the prices often allow brides with low-end wedding budgets save on a designer wedding gown.
Trash The Dress
A relatively new, but rapidly growing trend in the wedding industry is the "trash the dress" phenomenon. It is just as it sounds. Brides don their wedding dress after the glitz and glam has worn off and head out to literally trash their dress – with a photographer in tow. The concept behind trashing the dress is to let go of the expectations and the pressure of wedding planning and to have some fun in a beautiful gown. The "trashing" may consist of swimming in a lake, rolling in mud, making snow angels, or even attending a county fair. Wedding photographers capture the session on film, so the freeing emotion of the experience is captured for a lifetime of memories. Rest assured, many brides report that their dresses come back nearly spotless after a trip to the dry cleaners.
Immortalizing the wedding dress is a longstanding tradition in many cultures. Some families have their own traditions that have grown over time. Regardless of which way you choose to preserve the memory of your dress, it will take on a beautiful life of its own – outside of the closet.
