What to do with your dress after your wedding

What do you do with your wedding dress after your wedding?  This is something that I have wondered about for a long time. What do most people do with their dress after the big day?  There are a lot of things that you can do with it, but sometimes they sound good in theory but when it comes to the crunch, I wonder how many of them I, personally, could go through with.

The first one, and I know that I couldn’t do it, is sell your dress. There are hundreds of places online and there are literally thousands of dresses on ebay. For me there is too much sentimental value to be able to sell my dress! I just cannot bear the idea of selling it. I’m not really sure why, but I just can’t contemplate it.

Another thing you could do is a ‘trash the dress’ photo shoot, it is something that I’ve blogged about in the past and seems like a fun idea.  A fun idea for a get together is to  host a bridal party, where you and some girlfriends and all dress up in your wedding dresses and sip champagne and have a laugh. This would be a great way to do some charity fund-raising for a great cause if you couldn’t bear to part with your dress but wanted to do your bit for some of the wedding dress charities.

One idea I really like, which for years is something that I have always intended to do.  I have always had ideas of repurposing my dress. Perhaps a christening gown for a baby. Or using it for something special to pass on to my children or for relatives to have with them on their own special day. A lovely handbag, handmade handkerchief or maybe a vintage fabric garter. Or perhaps sew some part of it into the hem of their dress or use the fabric to wrap around their flowers. It would be a nice touch to make the cushion that the rings are carried on by the page boy, or it could be used in the making of a wedding patchwork quilt.  I also have my mother in laws dress and I thought that this could be a way to include her in future family weddings now that she has passed away. I remember her asking me to try it on, many years ago when my husband and I had only been together a short amount of time. The dress holds happy memories for me and represents a part of a really happy time in her life. Like most dresses do.

There are some wonderful organisations that you can donate your dress to if you don’t have the space or feel like you want to share the love. There are some great charities in the US that do some great work, Brides against Breast Cancer, is a great idea. I can’t seem to find anything like it in Australia though.

One wonderful idea that I have recently heard about, is an organisation called Angel Gowns Australia. They take wedding dresses and make clothes for Angel Babies. They are made and given to families when the are going through something that is so heartbreaking, so that it is one less thing for them to think about.  You can read more about them here.

Now it’s time for me to have a long hard think about why to do with my dress.

Thank-you to the guys at Vision House Photography for the photos again this week. Check out their new website here and their facebook page here.

Turning off your phone for the wedding ceremony

There has been a bit of buzz around lately about couples asking their guests not to bring their phones to weddings. Some people don’t want others taking photos or risk the phones going off. Some people choose to put a ban on uploading files to social media sites for their big day. What do you think? Is this taking things too far? No phones at all? Can you really enforce this?

There are usually two camps on this theory and I have previously blogged about great ideas for using social media for those who choose to embrace it. However, I do understand the desire to have no photos uploaded.  I’m not too sure though about no phones at a wedding. What about the guest who has a 3 week old baby at home and this is the first time that they have left the baby at home? I don’t think they would be too fond of the idea and what about the people wanting to call a cab to get them from the ceremony to the reception. I think that a lot of people would just ignore the request.

On the other hand, it is not unreasonable to ask people to respect your wishes eg please turn the phone off during the ceremony and no photos to be taken. It is a definite way to make sure that people listen and pay attention. Your photographer would probably be happy that there won’t be lots of people jumping in the way when the bride is walking down the aisle. If you were going to ask for a blanket ban on photos at the wedding, you might want to think about making sure that you can make the professional photographers photos available to your guests as a lot of people want photos of these precious moments.

What do you think? Would you ban photos or phones at a wedding? Or been to a wedding where there was a ban in place?

Thanks again to Kirralee for the lovely photos on this weeks blog. Check out her website here and you can like her facebook page here.

Traditions – Writing on the bottom of your shoe

In a Turkish wedding, when getting married the bride has all her single female friends write their names on the sole of her bridal shoes. After the wedding day, if someone’s name has been rubbed off and can not be read anymore it means this person is going be the next to get married. What a lovely and fun tradition.

You could do something like this on your wedding day, you could make it something that you do at your kitchen tea or hens day celebrations. You could also look at some other variations on this tradition.

Some brides choose to have ‘I do’ or ‘Mrs (new name)’ painted on the bottom of her shoes. Another cute idea is to have initials of the bride and groom written there, in little gems or rhinestones, this would be a great way to get something blue into your outfit. (I’ve blogged previously about something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue, check it out here)

One thing that you can do is have your bridesmaid write some warm wishes to you. It could be something that they can do while you are spending time together getting your hair and makeup done, or maybe the night before if you are all staying together. Alternatively the bride could write on the bottom of the bridesmaids shoes as an original take on a thank you card. Especially if the bride is suppling the shoes for the attendants it would be a lovely surprise for them to read when everyone is getting ready.

Have you been to any weddings where the bride or anyone else had something written on the bottom of their shoes?

Thank-you to the Love Journal for the photos on this weeks blog, check out their website here and like them on facebook on their page here.