Do you still have your wedding dress??

[OrangeTulips]

So that’s it really. We’ve just moved house (again!). Regular occurrence due to DH’s job. This house has less storage than we would like so we are being really ruthless with what we are keeping. Does something fill us with joy? Is it useful? Do we actually use it?

AIBU to consider not lugging my wedding dress around for another move (or 100)? I know it’s a very personal question, but suddenly thought I could ask you guys why you’ve kept or not your wedding dresses.

My daughter has much wider shoulders than me so she wouldn’t wear it - during Covid she tried it on in our anniversary. No way would I ever fit back into it! 🤣. Nearly 25 years and 2 children and life have said goodbye to that figure forever! 😫

So why am I keeping it??! Yes its memory fills me with joy but I have photos of me in it which also fulfil the feeling of joy associated with it.

Anyway, let me know why you’ve kept or not your dresses!

ps DH is very happy for me to keep it. This is entirely me battling with I feel I ought to keep it but why??!

I’ll be keeping mine despite the divorce. I’m a sentimental one and like to think DD will like to see it when she is bigger (she’s only 5). Or use some of the fabric. I don’t have expectations she will wear it in full but a friend used some fabric from her mothers dress in her own which was lovely.
It is a beautiful dress. I couldn’t get one leg in it now but would love to wear it again.

I know of a tradition where some of the fabric is used in a Christening gown
for those who are religious

Not a great picture but a bog standard dress for that time (1987)

I have mine, which I love, love, love. I have my mother’s, the dress her sister wore as bridesmaid and the dress my mother wore as bridesmaid for her sister.

DD can’t fit into any of them.

Only married 10 year but still got it. Its in a box under the office desk. I plan to keep it forever. If my DD doesn't want it I will then give it to the charity that makes dresses for still born babies when I am too old to care about it anymore.

We do get it out every now and again tho for my DD to see. She's only 4 years and loves when it comes out.

We were really hard up and I wanted to sell it. DM wouldn’t let me and kept it, until the day she told me I was very unreasonable making her keep it all these years and I needed to take it away. In the meantime my DNs had tried it on, and it was about 20yrs too late to sell it!

I’ll probably donate it at our next house move, for someone else to cut up.

Took it to dry cleaners and then to the charity shop. But it was by no means an expensive dress and I'd got it in the sale. The whole wedding dress thing was never really on my radar and I'd nearly chosen a completely non weddingy dress.

We kept my mum's which was beautiful and which looked like a princess dress for years and years. I'm not sure what happened to it in the end? So I get the nostalgia and that difficulty of letting go. I'd keep it till you are ready to let it go....

Mines been packed away in the loft for decades. It wasn’t a trad wedding dress though - just a very pretty long dress - that fitted my then small size 10.

It would never have fitted either dd, never as skinny as I was.

No, I sold mine just after the wedding (whilst the design was still current) and bought some expensive jewellery which reminds me of our fabulous day when I wear it....

It was an expensive dress (Sassi Holford) and I loved it, but couldn't bear the thought of it languishing in a loft for years. I had zero desire to wear my mother's and thought any future DD would probably feel the same!

In a tall glass cabinet downlit with a spotlight, on a mannequin; I have a large bedroom so it stands in the corner. Spent a lot of money on the dress so might as well enjoy it. Its a bit Miss Havisham, but I like it.

There are lots of examples if you Google image.

Yes, not religious here though so that’s unlikely.

It is in the loft, in the box they put it in after it was dry cleaned. I don't know why- I was 3 sizes smaller when I got married and can honestly say I won't ever wear it again. As we only have a son, it isn't as if he will wear it either!

That is such a great idea! Wish I'd had it 20 years ago!

Yes mines still in its dust bag under our bed (ottoman.)

It’s covered in toothpaste, gravy and red wine so needs a good clean! I keep meaning to dry clean it and then sell it and use the money towards a nice weekend away with DH, it’s only 3 years old and a modern, simple style.

I have 3 boys who likely won’t want to wear it on their wedding day and not particularly sentimental about these things.

I have mine, and it still fits -- 33 years later. However, it was an eau-de-nil suit in a Jackie Kennedy style, rather than a "wedding gown". I've worn it as a MoH and to other weddings, most recently my niece's. I'd probably need to plan a few weeks of intermittent fasting to get back into it comfortably, but it still does up!

I donated mine to a bridal charity shop soon after my wedding. Makes me happy to think someone else will have hopefully had the use of it.

No I hired a dress couldn't understand spending a fortune to wear something for a few hours.

I still have and wear mine because I opted for a beautiful Ralph Lauren gown which works for black tie events. DH ex W still has her wedding dress and every now and then his ex MIL dresses their DD up in it and sends him photos. Not weird at all 😬 (no I wasn’t the ow, and we’ve been married for years!)

I think it may even have been a Mumsnet idea - although we've been married 25 years next year so thinking about it, it was more likely to have been from one of the wedding fora I frequented - I didn't start using MN until 2003 when I was pg with DC1. Anyway, it was a good idea, wherever it came from!

I kept mine for almost 20 years. Then shortly before COVID, I donated it to a Children’s charity that has a couple of bridal boutiques around the country. My DSis had bought a dress from the same charity for her wedding a number of years before that.

I knew I would never use it again. It was highly unlikely that DD would ever wear it. So I thought it best to wave a fond farewell to the dress and send it and it’s good vibes to another bride. It hasn’t made a difference to still being happily married.

I gave mine away to a charity that gives wedding dresses to terminally ill brides.

There are OP. I've been googling and trying to contact them this summer but can't find any takers yet. Ones closed down, one isn't replying . . .

Would love to support them .

I do. No idea why tbh. Its stored in my parents attic, after my divorce. None of my children will ever wear it, but I remember looking in awe at my mother and grandmother's dresses, as a child, so I've kept it.

A group of 4 friends and I meet every year, rotating to a different person's house, to have dinner, a drink or 9, and wear our dresses. Over the years there have appeared a rip or two, a red wine stain, a chocolate cake mark etc. All the husbands go out and leave us to it. We have an evening of catching up, laughing, reminiscing . It's great fun and I can wear my dress again. It's a 1950s dress, not white, a bit of a Doris Day prom dress, so it's 70+ years old already. I have sons, so no one to pass it to. Got married 15 years ago.

Nope. Donated it to charity about a month after we married. It was expensive for us at the time, but would I ever wear it again. No.

I like to think I made someone else's wedding a bit more affordable as it is stupid money for a day. Happy to say almost 30 years later still happily married, I was 19 when I married so doubt I would fit the dress anyway!