What to do with divorced moms wedding dress?

[Kristilyn1]

Okay, my parents have been divorced for over 26 years, there is no love lost between the two of them and together they have 3 children (me, my sister, my brother). Recently, at my grandmothers' house we came across the wedding dress my mom wore when she married my dad. She DEFINITELY did not want it, for obvious reasons. We are all married and while we were raised Catholic we are not (for the most part) raising our children Catholic. I took the wedding dress as I don't feel comfortable just throwing it out. Is there anything we can "turn it into" that would honor the fact that they once were together and created 3 children, but doesn't make a big deal out of a spectacularly failed marriage? I thought about a christening gown, but we are not really religious (most of the kids aren't even christened). My mother is also really short and we are tall, oh, did I mention? All our children are boys with only my brother who is probably going to have one more child.

Any ideas?

[blazedog]

I have intense packrat tendencies. Thank the Lord I discovered flylady who has enabled me to release some of my possessions.

Flylady's most basic advice is to keep only those things which you love or are useful. She reminds us that we should NEVER keep those things which make us unhappy or remind us of painful things.

Sounds obvious until I realized how much stuff I was keeping because I THOUGHT I should be keeping it -- because of who had given it to me and/or of the theoretical symbolic significance. (I won't even address other dysfunctional reasons I kept (and still keep) too much stuff as I am a work in progress.

Now whether you want to retain a wedding dress from your parents' failed marriage is of course a personal decision. But ask yourself, don't you currently possess far better things that express the love you feel for the individual members of your families. People aren't the same as possessions -- it took me awhile to be able to release much stuff that had belonged to my dead brother for example until I internalized that he didn't exist in that inanimate stuff -- so I kept only those few things that made me feel good about him and really represented his essence.

So think about whether you really need to have a concrete reminder in the form of a wedding gown. If you release it, it could perhaps bless someone else as a charitable donation.

[badunnin]

If you consider donating it, but don't want to do the Salvation Army/Goodwill thing, think about a local theatre group or high school theatre department for use as a costume. I am forever grateful to someone who donated a wedding dress that I wore as a costume, and the theatre department to which I donated it after I'd used it (I bought it at a Goodwill store) is grateful as well - they are hard to come by!

[zwieback]

I really don't know anything about this but, I thought I've heard of people turning dresses into quilts. Perhaps you could look into that.

[DeeK]

There are also places that will turn the wedding dressing into very nice teddy bears. The bears look somewhat Victorian in style.

[jmarie]

How about Christening or Dedication outfits for the great grandchildren, if you do this. Take something from an unhappy event and turn it into a beautiful and blessed item.

[Grace]

My older sister and I both took our old wedding dresses from each of our first failed marriages and sent them to our cousins in the Ukraine who had absolutely nothing. Although I have to say that it was right after the wall came down and people were still incredibly poor, and I know their economies are better now than they were then. But my younger sister visits Russia and Serbia a lot and says that it's still really awful in many places. I can't tell you how excited and grateful our cousins were to receive those dresses. They took them apart and put them back together totally differently (sister's bodice, my sleeves, etc.). They sent us pictures (and I have to say, I thought what they did turned out totally hideous! :eek: :o ), but our cousins were so thrilled and that alone was enough for me.

So perhaps you can find someone who would really, really love it. I was glad that two expensive dresses with no emotional significance to either my sister or I (meaning they were being wasted) wound up with some people who loved them and needed them.

[Kristilyn1]

Thanks for the good advice. I didn't mention that this dress is handmade and from 1969--so not sure if anyone would want it as it exists today. The teddy bear sounds do-able---even to take a small portion of it and make it into something useful or pretty would be nice. But I STILL wouldn't give it to my mother as she'd probably burn it...LOL.

Kristi

[seathyme]

A few months ago I helped my divorced mother break down her huge house and prepare to move into a condo. In the attic we came across her wedding dress as well as my dress from my first (failed) marriage. We enjoyed taking both of them to the Salvation Army.

But I really like Bethany's idea of the theater department of a local school too! That could nicely take the edge off the memories...

[blazedog]

Thanks for the good advice. I didn't mention that this dress is handmade and from 1969--so not sure if anyone would want it as it exists today. The teddy bear sounds do-able---even to take a small portion of it and make it into something useful or pretty would be nice. But I STILL wouldn't give it to my mother as she'd probably burn it...LOL.

Kristi

Just curious as to why you feel the need to hang on to a material object that your mother would burn?

[newcook]

Wedding dresses also used to be used to make coverings for baby wicker cribs. They were absolutely beautiful

[Kristilyn1]

Just curious as to why you feel the need to hang on to a material object that your mother would burn?

I guess I'm just as surprised that it wouldn't be obvious.......I'm glad people ask questions like this, otherwise I'd blithely go through life assuming people know exactly what I'm thinking! LOL.

It's the marriage of my mother to my father---a piece of history that while it didn't last it created my brother, my sister and I. Coming from a divorced family (as you may or may not know) you typically arrive into adulthood with very little in the way of intact family memories. At the very least, I know that on THAT day, my parents were happily married. I certainly don't feel overwhelmingly nostalgic about the dress it just seems a shame to not hold onto some sort of piece of the event, if for no other reason than for my brother and sister---but I'm only interested in it if it "makes sense". I have no intention of hanging the dress in my closet in memory of my mother's marriage--that seems senseless to me, just as senseless as throwing the dress out.

[blazedog]

I guess I'm just as surprised that it wouldn't be obvious.......I'm glad people ask questions like this, otherwise I'd blithely go through life assuming people know exactly what I'm thinking! LOL.

It's the marriage of my mother to my father---a piece of history that while it didn't last it created my brother, my sister and I. Coming from a divorced family (as you may or may not know) you typically arrive into adulthood with very little in the way of intact family memories. At the very least, I know that on THAT day, my parents were happily married. I certainly don't feel overwhelmingly nostalgic about the dress it just seems a shame to not hold onto some sort of piece of the event, if for no other reason than for my brother and sister---but I'm only interested in it if it "makes sense". I have no intention of hanging the dress in my closet in memory of my mother's marriage--that seems senseless to me, just as senseless as throwing the dress out.

Kristi -- Per my original post I thought I had made it clear -- although the internet/email is really not the greatest for nuances that are more obvious face to face -- that I did understand why although the marriage itself was a disaster as between your mother and father, it wasn't at all a disaster in that it produced you, your siblings and the love that you have for each other and your parents, your parents for you -- if not for your parents for each other. PHEW.

I guess I'm at a point where I don't feel that material possessions necessarily are the best "carriers" of emotion although sometimes we think that they should be. The wedding dress is just textiles with no meaning beyond what you invest it with. Do you really need a teddybear dressed in a scrap of the dress to remind you of what is around you all the time -- i.e. the love you and your family share.

I am not at all saying that nothing of sentimental value should be kept -- only that if you are straining to find a purpose and a way to keep this particular item in your life because you THINK it would be wrong to get rid of it, maybe that's not true.

Sometimes possessions become a burden -- My grandmother knitted and embroidered table cloths for example. My mother made quilts. Now a few of these things I have hung in my house and give me great pleasure to look at = but most of them just take up storage because I don't know what the heck to do with them -- I just don't have a lifestyle in which I want to deal with formal linen embroidered tablecloths that need to be ironed, bleached in spots etc. nor do I want to redecorate my bedroom around the quilt she made for her bedroom :) I honestly wish most of them would mysteriously disappear so I wouldn't have to make that decision.

Anyway such a complex issue although it seems so simple -- there isn't any right or wrong. Just don't necessarily be afraid to find another home for the dress because you THINK you should keep it but nothing wrong in keeping it if you truly WANT to keep it if that makes sense.