What To Do With Your Wedding Gown After The Wedding

Your wedding gown may be the most unique and most loved piece of clothing that you ever wear. For many brides, their dress is the physical symbol of their wedding, their love, and their style. Boxing it up and storing it scarcely feels as if you’re doing justice to this piece in the puzzle that is the beginning of your happily ever after.

Give It To Your Daughter

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In this situation, boxing it up is perfectly acceptable. If you want to share your gown with your future child, you will need to keep it in the best possible condition. Local cleaners should offer a service for bridal gowns that includes cleaning and storing the dress so that it will be in perfect condition for future use.

Wear It On Your Anniversary

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Again, protecting your dress now will ensure that you can wear it again later. What better way to honor years of love than by wearing the gown that started it all? This would be a great surprise not only for your husband, but for friends, family, and guests. You very well may need to get the dress altered, but wearing your wedding gown again on your silver or gold wedding anniversary would be a wonderful tribute.

Donate It

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If you have no intention of reusing your dress, you can donate it to help any number of causes. In some cases, the dress will go to help couples in need, including military brides, achieve their dream of a white wedding. Sometimes, donations are sold and used to help with worthy causes, such as sex-trafficking prevention or fighting cancer. Or your donated wedding dress could be used as fabric, such as those used to make burial clothing for infants.

Host A Wear Your Wedding Gown Party

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Rather than let your dress sit in a box for a decade or more, take it out and wear it again at a Wear Your Wedding Gown Party. This is a great opportunity for your and your friends to get together and don that fairytale princess dress in which you started your married life. The average wedding gown costs $1,100 and is only worn once. This is a fun event that can occur regularly in order to feel like that beautiful bride just one more time.

Trash Your Dress

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This trend is believed to have started in 2001 when John Michael Cooper, a Las Vegas wedding photographer, believed that he could “make this type of crazy, sexy,” according to the Feminist Bride. He had watched an episode of Sunset Beach in which Meg Cummings had a fit when her wedding was interrupted and ran into the ocean while still wearing her gown. Hopefully, trashing your dress isn’t the result of an interrupted wedding ceremony, but if you do trash your dress, be sure to hire a photographer and get a great set of photos as a keepsake.

Make It Into A Necklace

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What better way to honor your marriage than to wear a piece of the wedding day years later? If it’s before your wedding, you can use a piece the seamstress cuts off during alterations. If it is after the wedding, you can often cut a piece off the inside seam or even a piece of lace from your veil. The necklace looks best when using lace that is accented with a dark background that makes the details really pop. This tutorial by Life With My Littles is easy to follow or you can contact someone on Etsy to make the necklace for you.

Don’t lose the romance of your wedding day. With these fun ideas, the magic doesn’t have to end when the day is over. Keep your fairytale alive by doing a little something extra with your wedding gown.