Trash the Dress!

On the flight back from a very fun trip to visit my sis in sunny CA (pictures will be coming soon!), I became aware of a new and intriguing trend in solving the wedding dress dilemma. Whatever are you supposed to do with it after the wedding? I had hoped to rent a dress to avoid this dilemma entirely, but the wedding dress rental shop in town had long gone out of business by the time I got married. The dress is hanging in a closet in the spare bedroom, but that room will eventually be needed when our family grows (just to make sure no rumors are started, we are neither expecting nor expecting to be expecting anytime soon!). Given my feelings about my mother's dress (a homemade mid-thigh number from 1970), I'm under no illusion that Maria will someday want my dress. I'm not particularly sentimental so I tried to sell my dress or give it to a friend, but to no avail. I could always drop it off at Goodwill, but somehow I'm just not happy with that option.

Now a whole new door has opened and I for one am excited! The airline magazine had a short article about a website called "trash the dress" featuring brides relieving the stress of their weddings by destroying their wedding dresses in various ways. The forum has even better pictures in my opinion and you definitely need to check out this video involving paint and an 80s dress with uber-puffy sleeves!

Mark and I were discussing the concept of destroying one's wedding dress in a spectacular way and while attracted to the idea, we both felt somewhat disconcerted by the wastefulness of the act. Why destroy a perfectly good dress? Just today a dear friend (who also happens to be a photographer) were discussing dress trashing and she had an awesome point of view. One can think of this as an act of creating, not destroying. You are creating art, creating pictures, creating memories. Since we aren't the original Creator, we must create out of something, and sometimes the raw materials are a bit costly!

This winter I hope to clean out some closets. And sometime this spring I hope to create some crazy fun memories with my dress, mud, daffodils and Maria! (Or possibly wait a few years and go to Las Vegas with Alicia, Judy, Christy and Marjorie to paint the town red in our white dresses, just like these ladies!)