What did you do with your wedding dress?

I had it preserved

Mine isn’t heavy, so I’m placing it in a shadow box to display in our room!

View Quoted Comment Can you post a picture of the shadow box. I have a unique body type I doubt anyone could reuse it. Thinking about shadow box to display it, but can’t find anything that display the train. I was thinking to pin the train as the background.

My mom had my grandma cut up her dress and sewed heirlooms out of it. We have a ring bearer pillow, money bag and flower girl basket lined from her dress that we will be using in our wedding. She also made tooth fairy pillows, a baby bassinet, and some other small items she wanted things to pass down to kids even if she had a boy or girl to use in their future weddings! I’m so glad she did because I can’t wait to use some of those in my wedding this year.

View Quoted Comment So my wedding was just last weekend and I haven’t even cleaned my dress! I only care about displaying mine from the waist up, so I don’t need a large box since my dress was light and flowy. But here is an example that inspired me! I couldn’t find large shadow boxes that aren’t custom made. Hope this helps! I just love the idea of seeing my dress 😍

This is going to be my second marriage. But after my first wedding, I donated the dress to my church’s thrift store (about 3 months later). It was in its bag, sitting at the top of the closet and taking up useful space. The dress had already done a wonderful job at serving its purpose on my wedding day. So there was no more that the dress could do for ME. After this wedding, I will be donating the dresses either to my church’s thrift store again or to a charity like: “Adorned in Grace” (dress proceeds assist in the fight against sex-trafficking) or “The Angel Gown Program” (Gowns are turned into dresses for infants who passed away in NICU’s) or “Brides against breast cancer”.


I realize that some brides preserve their gowns. But I’ve never been a person who attaches to tangible “things” and I find more joy in people and life’s experiences. So, I’d rather “pay it forward” and allow my wedding dress to go to good use for someone else.

Mine just sits there in its garment bag aha I had a crazy idea to cut it short though and dye it. Crazy aha but I think I won’t end up doing that. Some brides use it again as a Halloween costume! So that’s kinda cool aha or some use it to pass onto a future daughter

Mine is still hanging in my closet unpreserved in a garment bag almost a year later.

I had mine preserved.

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That sounds like a neat idea! Aside from drinking some fun beverages, playing dress up and watching Bridesmaids, I’m not sure what I would do. I’m not the type to hold on to things. But I love it so much I would want to wear it again.

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There are actual wedding dress donation organizations that take used wedding gowns that you could try.

my gown is actually an evening dress so i did one time consider donating it to like a prom dress drive or something.

Never got to wear mine...due to CVIOD

We eloped so I plan to re-wear my dress for our wedding next year. I only wore it for a couple hours (no sweating) so just picked out any debris that got stuck on it (it is lace and I wore it outside so it had a lot of little sticks and stuff) and put it back in the garment bag.

One guy I know says that his wife puts on her wedding dress every year for their anniversary and has done so for the past 20+ years. I love that idea, and would like to do something similar with my husband - put on my dress, dance to our song, maybe have some champagne. Granted, I think it would be a miracle if I still fit in my dress every year for the next 20+ years.

I personally don't care for the idea of spending hundreds on preservation and just locking my dress up on a box. I'd rather be able to take it out, touch it, examine it, try it on, have my kids feel the lace, etc afterwards and have it be this tangible, real thing you can interact with. Archiving my dress like a museum artifact just feels really emotionally distant to me.

I bought my dress pre-owned and it was dry cleaned before I got it than sat in my closet for 8 months or so prior to our elopement and looks absolutely fine. I will likely get it professionally cleaned or dry cleaned after the wedding, just to help prevent it from yellowing and remove any chemicals like sweat, spills, etc that would degrade it over time. However, I don't feel like a full preservation really appeals to me - it's not important to me that my dress is 100% pristine decades from now as any minor imperfections are part of my dress's history.

Because I got my dress pre-owned, I got a great deal for it, so that's one of the reasons I'm more apt to keep it and enjoy it. If I spent a fortune on it, I'd probably want to recoup some money by reselling it and/or invest more to keep it pristine and preserve it for the future. Full preservation would probably cost as much as what I paid for it - it just feels unnecessary. I think if I get to wear my dress twice, and then every so often I can take it out and relive that joy, or I can loan it to a dear friend to use for her wedding or something like that, then that is how I really get the most value out of it.

One of my friends re-wore her sister's wedding dress to her own wedding.

View Quoted Comment Great! I need more ideas for these!

View Quoted Comment I’m so sorry 😢 will you get to wear it eventually?

View Quoted Comment Same! Besides dressing up drinking beer with a couple of friends in my living room 😉

View Quoted Comment No time soon...it was actually our dream wedding for us to renew our vows. 1st time we never had a wedding...so no time soon at all at least we are married

View Quoted Comment That’s such a sweet tradition!

View Quoted Comment Awe, that’s good but I understand! I’ve heard others including my fmil say they regret not having a bridal dress.