Old wedding dress

You could use it to make your lingerie, wraps for bouquets, or use just the veil OR see a seamstress and see about adding some panels in to make it larger

Depending on what kind of gown and how many layers their is several things you can do, since it’s your MIL dress it may be nice to do a patch of it (like a heart ) on your gown and also on your FH tie, bow tie, inner jacket ect ... you can also talk with a seamstress and see if it’s possible to make a veil out of it, or even a cape or Shaw I would also personally recommend to let anyone know who completes these changes not to throw anything out they don’t use and to give it back after my wedding I’m going to have a part of my dress altered into my first daughters baptism dress

Hey Kelly!

This is such a beautiful idea! As the pp’s mentioned, there is so much that you can do with an old wedding dress to keep its sentimental value for your own wedding.

Have you already bought your own wedding dress? Are they the same color?

You could definitely make a veil out of part of it. If there are any aspects that are particularly beautiful and intricate, you could see if the seamstress would be able to add it to you your dress, either somewhere on the bodice or on the skirt.

You should book a consultation with your seamstress and bring the dress. You might be amazed at what they think of doing with it!

My grandma took my moms wedding dress and made a clutch for me for my wedding day, a ring barer/ tooth fairy pillow and a baptism gown.

View Quoted Comment Oh wow these are awesome ideas!!! I’m definitely going to try the ring bearer pillow and the clutch!

View Quoted Comment I already bought my dress and veil and it’s very detailed. The two dresses are very similar in color but I already have so much detail to my dress I don’t want to add anything else. But I definitely I want to use her dress for like a ring bearer pillow and maybe a clutch like someone else suggested. I just am having trouble finding a seamstress in New Jersey that works very well with such an old dress.

i've heard of people taking a little bit of an old handed down dress and sewing a portion of it into their new one to act as their "something old"

Both my older sister and I wore our mother's wedding dress. Daughter wanted to wear it, but at 70+ years old the fabric was too delicate (it literally shreds when you move it...) and it was about 4" too short on daughter with no way to fix that. With my sister's blessing (since she had a "stake" in the dress as well), we used a section of the fabric that was reinforced with lace to wrap daughter's bouquet stems. It was something subtle most guests didn't even notice, but daughter's thought was that her gramma, auntie, and I would all be "holding her hand" all day long! (Yep! It still makes me tear up to think about that!)

View Quoted Comment Amazing!!! I love that and exactly how I want to feel in my day!!

You can also do hankercheifs!

My mom wanted to give her dress to me. It is way too small as well. I am going to have a seamstress make it into a rehearsal dress for me. Or maybe a bridal shower dress I am not sure currently.

I've seen some beautiful and amazing jewelry pieces on Etsy that are made from old lace - people make little bouquet charms from it, put it in lockets, and also actually dip it in gold to make things like gilded cuff bracelets and earrings.

View Quoted Comment

It's such a sweet idea to incorporate her dress in your day somehow Have you decided what you will do with the dress yet?

You could make your veil, garters, wraps for bouquets and accent pieces for boutonnieres and corsages. You could also do what a previous post said about add it as a batch somewhere on your dress and FH tie or vest.

Make roses to use in the bouquets and bouts.

I've seen people sew a small patch of the dress on the inside of their new dress as their "something old" but I really like the idea of using some of it as a bouquet wrap!