Ideas for Wedding Dress Uses

by Leigh Reason

After your big day is over and you've wowed everyone in your lovely dress, you may be asking yourself what to do with the dress now that it's all over. There's always the option of cleaning and storing it so that you can pass it down to future generations. But you can make good use of your wedding dress in other creative ways as well.
Make a Difference

If the thought of cutting up your dress for household items sends you reeling, there are great way to use it for charitable purposes. You can donate it to a charity, such as the Making Memories Foundation and its Brides Against Breast Cancer program. The foundation accepts gently used wedding dresses and re-sells them to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Keepsakes

The fabric of your dress can be used to make lovely keepsakes and decorative items. You can cut the fabric of either the bodice or the train into squares to make a glorious quilt. This option ensures that your dress will be enjoyed and viewed all the time, albeit in a different way. You can use the same concept for decorative pillows. If your dress has a lace overlay, you could repurpose it as a doily or hankie. Another consideration is making a skirt for a new baby's bassinet using the fabric from your dress.
Other Wardrobe Options

Depending on the style of your dress, you can redo the bottom, cutting it shorter to make it an entirely different dress --- something fun to wear each year on your anniversary. If your dress design was simple, consider dying the fabric to something colorful to make a formal dress for another occasion or maybe even for a prom dress for a daughter.
Cleaning and Storing

The most important thing to do with your dress after your wedding is to clean it, even if you haven't decided how you want to use it, if at all. Within six weeks of your big day, take it or ship it to a reputable wedding dress cleaner to have the stains are removed. Stains set after six weeks, especially ones common at a wedding, such as makeup, spray tan, sugar, Champagne and dirt. Once you have a clean dress, you can decide what you want to do with it.

Make a Difference