What to do with your wedding dress when you don’t want it just taking up space.
So what can you do with your wedding dress once the party’s over, and you don’t want to keep it?
Well, here are eight ideas where you can get philanthropic, nostalgic or just plain creative…
1. Preserve your dress for use as a future christening gown.
Whether you have a boy or a girl if you’re going to baptise your child then you can divide your wedding dress into plenty of teeny-tiny lace dresses for your little ones on the day of their Christening.
2. Donate to Angel Gowns Australia to dress a stillborn baby.
Like our Editor-in-Chief Jamila Rizvi, you can donate your preowned wedding dresses to Angel Gowns Australia which will be used to cloth still born, ill or disabled babies.
3. Donate to Salvation Army or Red Cross, so someone else can afford a beautiful dress.
If you’re happy to permanently part ways with your gown, then you can donate your wedding dress to charities like the Salvation Army or Red Cross, which gives every bride access to wearing their dream gown.
4. Have a ‘Trash the Dress’ photo shoot.
One of the most interesting new wedding trends is a post-wedding ‘Trash the Dress’ photo shoot where brides and grooms destroy the gown by either swimming in it, painting it or even setting it on fire, all in return for creative photo keepsakes.
5. Auction off and give the proceeds to a charity of your choice.
There are a few charities that actively encourage selling off your dress to support their causes. You can sell your dress to help fight against Female Genital Mutilation or raise funds for further research into a cure for Breast Cancer. Or, you can quite simply auction your dress off and give the cash to any charity of your choice.
6. Sell it and keep the cash.
We all know it’s probably going to be the most expensive dress you ever buy, so why not make some money back on it? You can actually sell your wedding dresses online on wesbites like I Do Gowns, which have a plethora of preowned dresses to choose from.
7. Restyle it into a cocktail dress.
If you don’t want to part ways with your dress and you’d like to wear it again then you can always restyle your wedding dress into a classic cocktail dress that you can wear for years to come.
8. Donate it to Dress a Girl.
As one last philanthropic option, you can also donate your dress to Australian charity group ‘Dress a Girl’. You can submit your dresses (up to five at a time) to the charity who will restyle the fabrics into clothes that can be worn be little girls around the world.
Tell us, what did you do with your wedding dress once the wedding was over?
Top Comments
I had a friend cut my wedding dress up, to make 5x miniature wedding dresses, which I then used to make heritage display boxes with momentos for my 4 daughters and one for my Mums 50 wedding Anniversay. Added photo of one daughters box 💝
After it sat in the cupboard for 30+ years, my mother cut hers up and turned it into a quilted patchwork for her and dad's bed. She added some other coloured material and it is perfect!