Sunday, May 10, 2015

Where is your wedding dress?

Where is your wedding dress? What did you do with it? Lately I have seen all sorts of interesting things on Pinterest and other places where wedding dresses are being recycled (or re-purposed!) to make something useful out of them. Of course some women do what women have always done; keep the dress, sell it or give it charity or pass it down in the family.

I imagine what you do with your wedding dress depends on many factors. If you get divorced chances are you don't have much of an emotional attachment to your dress any more. Or maybe you do as it reminds you of happier times. I don't know, never having been divorced. But plenty of women would find themselves in that leaky boat...dress of their dreams and a relationship that ends up in hell. People make mistakes, things go wrong and sometimes I think people get married purely for the wedding day rather than wanting an actual marriage... But that is a different post.  But even assuming you remain happily married what do you do with that dress? 

Now my wedding dress is packed up in a huge box in the garage. I should probably point out I got married 19 years ago. Back when wedding dresses still had sleeves.....I think I got it out on my first anniversary and tried it on. Now it wouldn't fit me. I doubt it would make much money if I sold it. I could give it away I suppose but would it be considered too old fashioned even by brides-to-be that have to buy their dress at a second hand shop? I don't have a daughter I could pass it down to and even if I did she should get to pick what she wears on her wedding day. I would never expect her (or any potential future spouse of my son's) to wear what I wore as some sort of tradition.

So why is it still in a box in the garage? I'm not sure. I do feel that at some point I should do something with it or one day I will open the box and it will be scraps of fabric that are unusable.

Now there are some obvious ways of recycling your wedding dress. I imagine you could use the fabric for a christening gown or to make a pillow or stuffed toy. I can see it being used as the fabric covering a bassinet. These all came to mind easily. But If you have a Pinterest account then go and do a search for recycled wedding dress and see what amazing things some women have done with their wedding dresses.

Some fabulous examples include using a piece of lace from the dress and spreading it across a frame to make an earring holder. Gorgeous tote bags, quilts, scarves, clutch bags, wall canvases, handmade Xmas tree ornaments or Xmas stockings. Using it in an open locket to be worn as a beautiful piece of jewellery. Lace earrings, garters for daughters to use for their wedding. It seemed endless. 

                 
 


The most poignant was the angel gown posts; where wedding dresses are used to make gowns for stillborn babies. There are organisations such as the NICU Helping Hands’ Angel Gown ® Program that use wedding dresses donated to them to make these angel gowns. Whilst I don't have a living daughter to wear my wedding dress I did lose a baby girl. If she had been a few weeks older she would have required a funeral. I can see how these angel gowns would bring some small comfort to women of stillborn babies, their lost angels. 
                       
                             

There were some ideas that made me cringe though like doilies. I mean doilies? No one likes the ones made from traditional materials let alone using a wedding dress to make them. Perhaps that's what the divorced women do. Cut up their dress and make a stack of doilies and donate them or else send some to their former mother in-law?

I have recently taken up sewing again. My sewing machine decided to die on me just as I was getting back into it but a new one is on the way. I also have the tools for making jewellery and recently succeeded in making a passable looking pair of earrings. 

So given that should I recycle my dress in some way? Use the beautiful silk and lace to make things that I could use and surround myself with? Is that better than keeping it in a box? I suppose there is this little voice in my mind saying one day I might regret it but for the life of me I cannot understand why I would. It's a weird dilemma to have I realise. 

So tell me where is your wedding dress? Did you recycle yours? What are your thoughts?