What to do with the dress?

As the wedding began to fade into memory I had to decide what to do with my wedding dress. Now, I loved my dress. It was comfortable, fun, and just perfect for me. I loved shopping for it with my mom, sister, and grandmother. But I didn't love the idea of letting it hang in our (non-existent) closet for the next 500 years. Because I loved my dress I wanted it to be worn again. So, I decided to sell it.

First came the task of getting the dress clean. Now, dry cleaning for a wedding dress can cost $100-$200 easily, which would pretty much negate the profits of selling the dress. I did some research online and turns out you CAN hand-wash a wedding dress, IF it's made of synthetic fibers (not silk). So, I scrubbed the bathtub really, really well, rolled up my sleeves, and dove in. It probably took 3-4 hours of soaking, gently scrubbing the hem with a soft toothbrush and detergent, more soaking, copious rinsing, and rinsing some more to get the dress sparkling ivory again but it worked! The dress looked great and ready to go. Granted, I was getting it clean for the purpose of re-wearing in the very near future. If you're trying to preserve your dress so your granddaughter can wear it maybe hand-washing isn't the way to go.

Finally, I put the dress up for sale on BravoBride. A couple weeks later I had an interested buyer. We exchanged a few emails, she sent a payment using Paypal, and I put the dress in the mail! Sometime in the next year a Minneapolis bride will have a fabulous wedding wearing my dress and I couldn't be happier. She gets to save a little money, I get to make a little money, and we both conserve the resources that would have gone into making another identical wedding dress.

With the money from the dress I signed up for a floral design class at a local university. I had so much fun doing the wedding flowers that I decided to learn how to do it for real! It starts Monday and I can't wait.