My wedding dress dilemma

What should I do with my wedding dress?

Tucked away on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, it’s out of sight, which makes it easy to be out of mind most of the time.

But every once in a while — typically when I’m putting away the laundry — I spot it and ponder that question.

Unfortunately, four years later, I’m not closer to an answer.

My wedding dress

I absolutely love my wedding dress. This needs to be said because if I’m being honest, I really didn’t care much about the dress when we started planning.

Some people find that surprising but I’m not sure why. Over the years, my style has shifted more toward items that can be worn a variety of different ways.

A wedding dress doesn’t exactly fit that description.

In fact, I was so indifferent about the whole wedding dress thing I considered not getting one at all, opting instead for a fancy dress that I could wear again.

I likely would have gone that route had a dear friend not offered to gift me her dress.

The biggest surprise to me was how, despite being about 20 years old, the dress looked like one I could purchase at a bridal shop. I loved the look. And let’s be honest: the zero dollar price tag didn’t hurt.

I also liked the idea of being able to give a pre-loved dress a second chance to shine. I didn’t want to spend big bucks on a dress I’d only ever wear once. Wearing a gifted, second-hand dress addressed both these hang-ups.

I was sold. A couple small alterations later, and I had my dress.

The current situation

For the first four years after our wedding, my dress lived packed away in its box on the top shelf of our bedroom closet.

On the one hand, having the original box meant I had somewhere to pack it after the ceremony. However, the thing about the box is…well, it’s big. With that box on the shelf, there was not much room for anything else.

If we lived in a bigger place, this might not be an issue. However, we currently rent a two bedroom apartment with very limited storage. Maximizing the space we have is very important. Having that large box occupy a corner of our closet really limited our ability to use the space to its full potential.

So we did something Marie Kondo would disapprove of: we brought the dress to my in-law’s house. Currently, it’s packed away in its box in the basement.

This is a temporary solution, a way to get our closet space back while we come up with a long-term solution.

What should I do with my wedding dress?

Which brings us back to that question: what should I do with my wedding dress? What do most people do with their wedding dress after the wedding has come and gone?

Like a true millennial, the first place I turned for assistance answering this question was Google.

And as is often the case when you ask Google a question that doesn’t have a singular answer, I got a lot of different ideas and opinions.

There were a few items that stood out to me as potential options based on that search:

• Continue preserving it (and perhaps pass it down to a future child?). This option would involve storing it at the in-law’s house until we live in a place with more storage options.
• Ask someone (perhaps my mother-in-law) to use the material to create something new.
• Sell it. If I went this route, it would only be for the amount I spent on the alterations.

All three options have pros. All three options have cons.

And I’m not totally sold on any of them yet.

Final Thoughts

Normally, I like my posts to have a conclusion that wrap things up nicely. But in this case, I’m admittedly stumped.

So…what do you think? What should I do with my wedding dress?

It doesn’t need to be one of those three options — I’m open to hearing other ideas. Normally, I don’t struggle with decisions about clothing — if I’m not wearing it, I sell, donate or trash it, depending on condition — but this is different. There’s some sentimentality at play. And unlike a t-shirt or a pair of jeans, your wedding dress isn’t exactly an item you can just replace if you change your mind.

What did you do with your wedding dress? If you sold or donated it — did you regret it? Seriously, any and all feedback on this is very much appreciated!

Photo by Sarah Pflug from Burst