When a marriage ends, you may want to cut ties from everything that was once associated with it. Most people enter into a marriage as a lifelong commitment, so when one ends long before the life is up, a lot of very raw emotions can surface, even in the most amicable of partings.
While you might want to just stuff the dress you got married in into the back of the closet and forget it ever existed, hold on. We’ve got a few creative ways to deal with a wedding gown after divorce.
#1: Sell it to consignment.
If your dress didn’t bring you good luck in your marriage, maybe it can line your pockets a bit after the divorce. There are many consignment shops that will happily sell a wedding gown after divorce. There are even shops that specialize in taking on old gowns and selling them to new brides on a tight budget. You can find an online retailer to sell your dress to, or you can pop into local consignment shops. You might make enough money from your old gown to do something special that will make you feel good about starting a new chapter in your life.
#2: Host a divorce bonfire, with the dress as the fuel.
If you have some residual resentment following the end of your marriage, you might want to do something dastardly with your wedding gown after divorce, and you might as well have some fun while doing it. Consider hosting a bonfire, with strips of your dress as fuel. Invite all of your girlfriends, have some good food, a couple drinks and watch strips of your wedding gown burn. You can even ask your friends to bring over mementos of their former relationships for bonfire fuel, too.
#3: Donate it to a good cause.
If you believe your dress is still gorgeous now, even if the marriage didn’t work out, why not consider giving it to a good cause? There are several charities that accept wedding gowns and give them to low-budget brides so they can feel beautiful on their wedding day, too. Not only will it count as a charitable donation, but it will help another bride have the wedding of her dreams, even with a low budget. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with scoring some extra karma points.
#4: Turn it into a New Dress
While you may feel like the dress is “cursed”, it really isn’t. After all, a wedding gown is just feet of gorgeous fabric, and that shouldn’t go to waste just because the man of your dreams turned into the man of your nightmares. To celebrate your freedom, consider having your dress turned into something else entirely. A talented seamstress can take a long wedding gown and turn it into a slinky, black cocktail dress, or a sultry, red number. You can wear your new, beautiful dress on a special date with the new man in your life.
After a divorce, you may be filled with a lot of mixed emotions. That is completely normal. It is also completely normal to feel like you don’t know what to do with all things wedding related. If you are feeling unsure about your next move, especially when it comes to your wedding gown, worry not. You can use these ideas as inspiration, or you could wait until you feel a bit less emotional to make a final call on the fate of your former wedding gown.
Photo credit: killrbeez / Foter / CC BY-ND
