Trash the Dress

Donate the Dress!

After our wedding, I took my disgusting wedding gown to the cleaners to go through the preservation process.  My husband saw the bill and told me I was crazy to spend all that money to keep “some material” in a box in our closet for the rest of our lives.  He insisted that I sell it on Ebay, and I vehemently refused citing the overall failure of men to understand sentimental value.  This was my WEDDING dress, a representation of the most important day in my life, in our lives, I was not about to sell it to username: Bridezilla666 on Ebay!  Didn’t he understand all the memories that were attached to it?

I had an image in my mind that maybe I’d find some reason to wear it again one day.  Maybe I could be a bride for (every single) Halloween (for the rest of my life).  Or maybe I’d find some fantabulous tailor who’d dye it black, and cut it into a cute little cocktail dress?  I also, considered doing some Trash the Dress photos that are the hotness these days.  Any excuse to put the thing on again, right?

So I Googled what to do with my dress, and came up with the best idea thus far, donating my dress to a good cause – The Making Memories Foundation.  Their mission statement is, in part, “to provide an opportunity for metastatic breast cancer patients’ dreams or wishes to be fulfilled by providing a special time of ‘Making Memories’ together with their families, a chance that might not have become a reality without the assistance of the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation.”   (Similar to the Make-A-Wish foundation for terminally ill children.)

The foundation has a number of fundraising programs running, one of which is titled Brides Against Breast Cancer.  Brides donate their old gowns to the charity and they are later sold alongside many new gowns, donated by various companies, in cities throughout the U.S.  The proceeds of these sales go toward making a wish come true for a terminally ill breast cancer patient.  Although it involves parting with my beloved wedding dress, the idea that it is going to make another bride so happy makes me so happy, and knowing that it will help in Making Memories for breast cancer patients is just one more sentimental feeling attached to my dress and our big day.