With regard to preserving…I volunteer in a charity thrift store. We get donations of preserved wedding dresses frequently. Believe me when I tell you…the older ones are just as yellowed as ones on hangers. And the old lace is as stiff as a board as well.
The box might take up less space and can be tossed in an attic.
My DD has already told me…she will never wear this dress again. I’m voting for consigning it…or selling on eBay. We have a really nice bridal consignment shop here…and I’m quite sure they could sell this dress, as the only alteration was shortening it. And it’s a current style of a popular designer.
I got D’s dress cleaned and preserved. $385. It’s in a box under the bed in a room where usually no one is sleeping. I just thought preserving it would give us time to consider it’s fate. It’s a beautiful dress, and is a simple and timeless design so maybe it will be worn again.
For those of you considering selling a dress, try Poshmark if your consignment place doesn’t work out.
When I was little the girl across the street had her mother’s dress for dress up. I thought she was the best mom in the entire world for letting us play with it!
My BFF had a very simple silk dress with an embroidered train (which she didn’t use). She was supposed to give me the train to make a first communion dress for my daughter (who was a flower girl) but she had the dress cleaned, but into a preserved box, and sent to the basement. It will NEVER be used again as the basement is awful.
I say give them away, used them, let the little girls play with them. I have my mother’s, which is a 1950’s tea length ballerina style. The lace and netting is all yellowed. None of the adult women in my family could ever come close to fitting into it. We would have loved to have played in it when we were 8.
My mother let us play dress up in a bride’s maid dress she had. It was high 1950’s fashion, deep blue velvet, and had the widest skirt you could imagine. We would hold it against our body and spin around in circles until the skirt propelled straight out and started forming rippling waves. It was amazing!
She sold it at a yard sale! Along with her mother’s silk wedding dress from the 1920’s. What a shame. Her grandchildren would have loved those dresses too. She regretted many of the things she sold, so be sure before you hand it over.
Mine was preserved and put into one of those big boxes 33 years ago. I haven’t peeked at it since. I’m kind of scared to. 8-X I guess I need to open it to see what kind of shape it’s in and then donate it somewhere.
My mom made my wedding dress when I married almost 30 years ago. I had it preserved and it has sat in a box in our attic for all those years. Last year, when getting rid of things, that box came down and we opened it. OMG, the chemical smell was overpowering. I was ready to discard the dress, but D2 loved it. It has a sheer back with about 50 tiny buttons running down the back. D2 thinks she wants a destination wedding with a trash the dress ending. So, back in the attic it went, but I don’t think that smell will ever come out. I also, don’t think she really wants that dress. She’s only 20 and not even engaged. LOL.
They had a rummage sale at our church to raise money for a mission trip. There were no fewer than 5 wedding dresses in the boxes with the plastic ‘peek’ window, some ripped open. These dresses were yellowed and not suitable for another wedding.
On the other hand, the church had a tea and fashion show with wedding dresses from the past and that was a lot of fun. Velvet dresses from the 20’s, handmade lace dresses from the 50’s, cowboy themes from the 70’s.
D married where she currently lives, but brought her dress home to be cleaned as it would be over $100 cheaper. The lady who is usually at the cleaners for intake told me that one of her daughters had just unboxed a dress for granddaughter and while it was yellowed, the second cleaning restored it to like new condition and to not think a yellowed dress down the road was a ruined dress. I’ve trusted this cleaners with many things through the years including the christening gown worn by my exH’s father in the 1890’s which they fully restored. They seem to know their business, so I’m going to believe them on this one.
I still have my wedding dress, but it was a two-piece, very simple style – the skirt is five tiers of ivory silk and the top is just a simple top of the same ivory silk with a very thick lace collar with elastic that I could slip down over my shoulders. I wore the top a couple of times in the first few years of our marriage but otherwise it’s just been hanging in a plastic garment bag. It’s really none the worse for wear and hasn’t yellowed. I suppose I could wear it again (although I have no idea for what!!) but I doubt that the waist would fit anymore.
I don’t think a yellowed dress is ruined, it is “antiqued”! My MIL decorated her house with dresses like that when she hosted a bridal shower for her daughter. She used her own, and asked her friends to lend her theirs. It was quite lovely.
My wedding dress hasn’t yellowed in 27 years and it’s just hanging in my closet in a regular plastic drycleaning bag. I wonder if different fabrics yellow differently? My dress is mostly Thai silk. The overskirt is separate, mostly organza, and it hasn’t yellowed either although it has some damage that needs sewing repair. Yeah, I’ll get to it someday…
I would strongly suggest NOT leaving these dresses in plastic bags. Again…in my experience receiving donations…clothes in plastic bags get musty smelling. Very musty smelling.
We have a cloth garment bag for the wedding dress…and it will just go in an extra closet.
For many years, I wore my wedding dress (which was just a dress…not a gown) on our first anniversary. It’s still hanging in my closet, but god knows why…I like the dress, but the style is very old, and it will never get used.
On a more cheerful note, my MOB dress is…machine washable! How good is that? Gentle cycle, inside out, line dry.
Trash the dress is a photo session after the wedding where you kinda do just that. The most popular is underwater photography. But I have seen pictures of paint balling, mud fights and things of that order. D2 wants a destination beach wedding and then take photos in the water. She’s young, she’ll probably change her mind by the time she gets engaged.
My dress is in a plastic bag hanging in my closet. But now I am worried about the christening dress I had preserved. It has my daughters initials embroidered on the skirt. I want them to be able to use it.
My D is probably getting engaged this summer, I thought I would check out my veil and see if she might like to use the material for her veil . She would not want my dress. However, I would never give it away . My MIL lent hers to someone and they never returned it. I could see my daughters wearing that , It was stunning. like Princess Grace’s It was a shame.
I worked with a guy who owned a dry cleaners as his side gig. He cleaned and preserved my dress for free. It was in a big box with a see-through front, and the box lived in my cedar chest for a few years. When H’s cousin “had” to get married, I offered for her to wear the dress. She happily accepted, and she returned it to me in a dry cleaner’s box. A few years later, I pulled it out of the cedar chest & removed it from the box … only to discover a big stain on the front that looks like cola. I was not pleased, but then I realized that it really doesn’t matter. Two women wore the dress - 100% more than I figured would wear it when I got it. There is no way D would have worn it - it was beautiful 35 years ago, but my D is more fashionable than sentimental. I think it will go in my someday-hopefully-grandkids’ dress up box.
D will have her dress cleaned & preserved. Whether or not it ever gets worn again is a question for the distant future.
We had a little hiccup which future DIL handled very well. She is ultra-organized. They have been engaged since May 2017. She ordered her dress 6 months ago. It was supposed to arrive 2 months ago, but didn’t arrive until last week. BUT, it was the wrong dress, or I guess technically it was the right dress but with additions that she didn’t care for that were not on the sample, and would not be easy to fix. The good news is that in the end she got a full refund. The bad news is that the wedding is in 2 months, and she didn’t have a dress. She and her mother went out yesterday and found a dress. Her comment was “the dress is fine, but future husband is perfect, so all will be great”. She sent a picture and it looks gorgeous.
Bride meltdown in process. She is working on addressing invitations. They are using a vendor who will print their addresses envelopes. But there is a 41 character limit per line, regardless of font. She refuses to use the traditional “Mr. & Mrs. James Williams” approach. She wants to use “Mr. James Williams & Mrs. Amanda Williams”. (And shortening to Ms where she is short on characters). It isn’t going well… lots are running to 2 lines, which is making her unhappy. Sigh. First meltdown that I’m aware of. I’ve made a few suggestions, trying to be helpful.
