25 Things to Do With Your Wedding Dress After Divorce

Here are some ways divorcees dealt with their wedding dress or tuxedo after divorce. 

1. I burned my wedding dress.
2. I sold mine a long time ago.
3. I have mixed feelings. My wedding day signified my respect for marriage and family. I took my vows seriously and I’m proud of that. But my daughters don’t want it and neither do I. I have one particularly beautiful photo of it that I will save. I honored my vows.
4. I gave it away to a thrift shop.
5. I gave mine to a young mother who was engaged. We connected on a neighborhood giveaway site.
6. I saved it for my daughter who wants to play dress-up.
7. My mother made my wedding dress and a few years later died of cancer. So this dress has sentimental value to me. She didn’t like my ex. She was right.
8. I lost my tuxedo in a house fire and got insurance money for it. Poetic justice.
9. My daughter altered my wedding dress and made it hers for her wedding. It’s a happy dress once again!
10. I did a post-divorce photo shoot at a beautiful park with my children. I wore the wedding dress as well as some other beautiful clothes. The kids and I all dressed up and posed together. It was lovely.
11. I still have mine preserved in a box in the attic. Eventually I want to donate it to an organization that takes wedding dresses and makes them into gowns for babies who were stillborn or died as infants.
12. I left my dress and everything else in the house when I moved out. And I put my wedding ring in the mailbox and texted him that his sign of love and fidelity(!) was there.
13. I donated it, but I wish I had kept it for my daughter to decide.
14. I donated mine to a local domestic violence resale shop. It was cathartic and symbolic that I would help other women who were escaping.
15. My daughter said she wanted to keep it. So my dress and veil, which were handmade by my mother, are in a vacuum storage bag.
16. For our 25^th anniversary vow renewal (after he “repented” from his adultery), I handmade elegant Renaissance clothes for the ceremony. I kept his and mine. I consider them to be costumes, and there aren’t any triggering memories for me.
17. Mine is stored at my in-laws house in another country. I will probably never see it again. Mainly because I’m not willing to make a long round trip just for that purpose.
18. I’m planning to do a photo shoot of my daughter wearing it, then cut it up and make something out of it for my kids to keep. It was handmade with several beautiful textiles.
19. I wish I had been able to give my wedding dress to one of those charities that repurposes gowns for stillborn babies. I’m a medical professional and I know how much that means to grieving parents.
20. Kept it for 10 years because I loved it so much, but then felt God tell me to burn it. I only had one friend who is Christian and was at that wedding, so she came and bore witness to a ceremony of renouncing my vows and burning the dress. I then threw the ashes into the sea. It was a beautiful day
21. I kept my first wedding dress. I could never sell it. The second one got a stain on it on the wedding day. I think I threw it out at some point.
22. I just put mine in the trash. It felt good.
23. I sold mine to a friend.
24. I gave my dress to Goodwill. Actually it was closed so I just tossed it on the ground by the door. Someone likely stole it before it ever made it inside. My ex had already taken our wedding album, my rings, and my diamond five-year anniversary necklace during one of his unsupervised visits with the children.
25. I burned mine, along with the terrible marriage books. A friend from a support group went with me and we used the bonfire to cook a celebration meal. So at least something good came from those books!
26. My ex lost my wedding dress while we were still married.
27. I left mine in the house when I walked away. The court gave me possession of the house, and my daughter found the dress stripped out of the garment bag and dumped on the floor with a pin that stated, “I support marriage.” The house sold two weeks later. I left it there. I didn’t have the strength to think about it.
28. I tossed it. My dress was butt ugly anyway.
29. I donated mine to an organization that takes dresses to poor countries.
30. I gave it to a woman at my church who was unable to afford a wedding dress herself.
31. I donated mine to Goodwill. And before that I had used it as a costume. So it had seen better days.
32. Mine was destroyed by a hurricane.
33. I actually drove mine to the dump. I pitched it as far as I could throw the box. It was quite therapeutic.
34. After the wedding, I never picked up the dress from the cleaners. I knew something was off as soon as we had the honeymoon. The wedding night and honeymoon made me question my decision to marry him. I wondered how bad it could get.
35. I bought my sister’s wedding dress. Then years later she bought it back from me.
36. Some local high school drama departments needed fancy clothing.
37. I threw mine away. It symbolized how much he valued me. It was purchased off a discount rack for $50. Everything about our life was cheap, even though he made six figures.
38. My husband threw my wedding dress away last time I tried to leave.
39. My ex hauls it with him every time he moves.
40. When I finally realized my marriage was over, I bought a chain and carried it with me. The day the divorce finalized I burned both my wedding dress and the chain. Symbolically I was unshackled and free.
41. I still have mine but it got dirty from the rain on our wedding day. I never got it cleaned. I’ll probably just donate it.
42. I just gave my dress to the owner of the local fabric store. She took care of it.
43. Here’s a place to donate it in the U.S. And another place in the U.K. for brides in 3^rd world countries.
44. I gave mine to the Angel Gown® program.
45. I donated mine to The Awakening Grace Foundation. They turn wedding gowns into burial garments for miscarried or stillborn babies.
46. I donated my dress to a special charity that uses it to help other women. Here are 3 charities that specialize in wedding dress donations HERE, HERE, or HERE.
47. I left mine in the master bedroom closet, all boxed up with books on how to be a good wife, for him and his girlfriend.
48. My ex demanded my wedding gown in the final decree. The judge gave it to him. I have no idea what he does with it, but he does have some sexual proclivities, so…
49. I wore my mother’s dress, so we definitely kept that.
50. My daughter asked for it, but in the end donated it when she found a dress she liked better.
51. I trashed it. I didn’t want anyone else to end up with the bad luck I had.
52. My mother used my wedding dress to make cute wedding dress costumes for the grandkids.
53. Mine was a very unique, simple dress and my sister made it for me. It is part of my life, my history, not his.
54. I kept it because my mother made it. I don’t connect it to my ex. I connect it to my mother pouring out her love for me. I can see her hands lovingly stitching the seed pearls around the bodice. It’s a treasure to me because of my mother’s love.

Want more? CLICK TO SEE THE POLL ON what to do with your wedding ring after divorce.