Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Thou Shalt Not Waste a Wedding Dress

The New York Times admittedly has some pretty weirdo fashion, but I was genuinely offended by an article on Sunday, featuring a trendy type of wedding photo shoot: Trashing the Dress. Some edgier brides are adding a new leaf to the wedding album by jumping - in their upscale, expensive wedding dresses - into fountains or algae-filled lakes for apres-wedding pics. They think putting the wedding dress away for safe-keeping too prosaic and prefer these arty shots.
I'm all for moving the gowns along, but didn't anyone tell these privileged ladies that low-income brides would love to have their beautiful dresses, or that a charity could resell them and use the money for something useful? The first hit on a simple on-line search tells a wonderful story: Brides Against Breast Cancer. They accept donations of wedding dresses and stage 32 wedding dress shows around the country! Talk about a win-win! The bride who donates her dress gets a tax donation, some lucky shopper can scoop up a great dress at a fraction of its original cost, and the proceeds go to helping women with metastatic breast cancer. Seems like one of the best ideas I have heard of in a long time. They even accept bridesmaids' dresses. That seems downright humanitarian!
Eventually some of these brides will be role models for their children. What would you rather tell your daughter some day? That you burned your wedding dress for a cool photographic effect or that you donated it to a charity to spread your wedding's blessings?

Anyone out there have a good story of what became of your wedding dress? (Or where yours came from?)

3 comments:

AMO said...

My wedding dress was black and cost me $12.99 on the clearance rack at the Gap. I wore it for our cheapo wedding in Las Vegas 10 years ago and have never once regretted not spending big bucks on a gown or ceremony! I still own it, and it hangs, unprotected, in my closet. And I can still fit into it. And I am still happily married!

Little Sunshine said...

Such an amazing story!

Sue said...

Thanks for the tip. I was looking for a way to share my abundance with others and this is a perfect opportunity.