Once, I Wore that Lampshade ....

I have been stumped as to what women do with their wedding dress, I held onto my grad dress for ten years trying it on only to see if it still fit. 

I still remember the conversation by the aunts and the grand women following the ceremony of the first wedding I attended, what to do with the wedding dress instead of sealing it up in a box; make throw cushions or lampshades!

I was stupefied at the suggestion of turning your beautiful wedding dress into a lampshade or pillow!!  Why on earth would anyone want to make a pillow or lampshade when you could just as easily go buy a throw cushion with a design or a lamp with a an already decent lampshade.  I was obviously imposing my limited ability to thread a sewing machine or cut a pattern on anyone else who would attempt such creative feats as assembling a pillow or lampshade from a wedding dress.

These two answers still ring in my head whenever I look at a wedding dress, I wonder what it would look like as a throw cushion or lampshade?  Or when I see white lampshades in a secondhand store, if they were once a wedding dress?  I have no urge to tear-up a wedding dress and start sewing cushions or gluing lampshades, but I still ponder what other possibilities a wedding dress can give us instead of being stuffed in a box to lie at the back of a closet.

Besides selling or donating your dress, a Google search came up with a lot of crafty stuff that can be done with a wedding dress most of which can be fun if you are that sort of person but not so much if you aren’t.  There are also sites promoting the idea of “trashing your wedding dress” as a form of stress release after the wedding and a creative outlet from the traditional photo shoot that usually involves the flowers, family and friends.  Trashing your wedding dress usually entails rolling around in the water, sand, mud and or grass in your wedding dress with your new husband, being as creative and destructive with your wedding dress as you please.  Interestingly enough, I did see some awesome pictures that involved tires and a gravel pit but probably not nearly as comfortable as a beach. 

I think my favorite suggestion was dyeing and redesigning your wedding dress into a simple summer dress or an amazing evening dress.   Be aware that to dye your wedding dress can be a bit of a challenge as only silk dyes properly anything synthetic won’t really work; polyester lining can shrink and the color may not be consistent, and the lace and beading will maintain its original color.  Its recommended that your wedding dress should be professionally dyed. 

Apparently there is a lot that can be done with a wedding dress after you are finished with the wedding ceremony stage: trash it for a photo shoot, salvage it if at all possible by dry-cleaning; redesign and dye it for a an evening or summer dress; and use the left over fabric for memorable creations.

If you have any comments or suggestions regarding this article I would love to hear them!!

Here are some links to check out some of the above sites I found when writing this article:

Trash your wedding dress images:

http://www.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=trashing+your+wedding+dress&wrapid=tlif130065370289011&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=g2aGTb7wI4i2sAP-0NiDAg&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=695

http://trashthedresseurope.wordpress.com/

The Wedding Seamstress has examples of wedding dresses that have been redesigned and updated!

http://www.theweddingseamstress.com/Dress_Redesign_Photos.html

Ehow.com has a great list for those who dare to make lampshades out of silk!! http://www.ehow.com/how_4899519_make-sewn-silk-lampshade.html

And if you are really brave, how to dye a dress (I love this blog, it makes it look right easy with a few prayers)

http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/10/i-wanted-to-dye/