7 Things you can do with your Wedding Dress after your Wedding
While you’re spending all of the hours planning, it definitely can be forgotten what to do with your things after the wedding is said and done! With the nature of white clothing, you definitely have to plan for something to do with your dress if you don’t want it to yellow with time. Here are the things you should/could do with your wedding dress after your wedding is actually over.
Clean It
I would highly recommend no matter what you plan on doing, you need to get your dress cleaned as soon as possible. There will likely be dirt at the bottom and if you had any other stains especially, we don’t want them to set in your dress!
2. Preserve It
Many people don’t really want to decide on what to do with their dress after the wedding and want to figure that out later down the line, but I would recommend if you anticipate keeping it that you get it preserved. That way, the yellowing will be halted and you can decide what to do with it later! Many dry cleaners have this as an option if you are interested in getting it put in a box, but there are also ways to get it preserved into a frame that you can potentially hang in your home if you like the idea of being able to see your dress out.
3. Donate It
If you’re not really interested in holding onto it, you can opt to donate it to someone. Whether it’s a person you know or you just want it to go to a good home, you can always try places like Goodwill or other donation centers that speak to you. You can also put it on Facebook Marketplace for $0 if you want to open it up to the internet.
4. Sell It
Many people opt to sell their dress because they know they aren’t going to use it again and they want to make some of their money back from the wedding costs. You won’t get it back for nearly full market price of when you bought it, but you can definitely try selling platforms like Still White or Facebook Marketplace.
5. Alter It
A recent trend for your wedding dresses are to alter it into a new outfit or dress that you can wear more frequently. That way it actually gets more than one use and isn’t just stuck in a box forever! You can make it into a midi dress, a robe… the opportunities are endless and you’ll be able to show it off more than once!
6. Repurpose It
Many people like to ask their seamstresses for the extra pieces of their wedding dress material when they are getting it altered so they can make things in with the remaining fabric, but you can also do this with your actual wedding dress. Some things that are common are christening outfits, picture frames with pieces of the lace, or handkerchiefs.
7. Pass It Down
The last thing that people opt to do is to pass your dress down to your future children. Very few couples opt to wear their parent’s or grandparent’s wedding dresses, but you can always have them take pieces of it or alter it into something more fit for their time. There is another trend where people are altering their parent’s or grandparent’s wedding dresses into the more casual dresses to wear to their rehearsal dinner or to alter it into the robe that they get ready in in the morning. I would usually recommend getting it preserved if this is the plan so it keeps its color!
Many of these possibilities are things that you can pair together and decide on later. If nothing else, I recommend getting your dress cleaned and preserved when your wedding is done and you can consider the other options later. Your dress may have costed you a lot of money, so whether that means you want to make some of the money back or get your money’s worth by making it into an outfit you can wear more than once, there are so many possibilities for your dress to live on a little longer!
