In just a few weeks, Kevin from Tucson, Arizona has been sweeping the internet with his humorous blog, My Ex-Wife's Wedding Dress. Recently his wife of 12 years loaded everything but her wedding dress into the car. As she was pulling out of the driveway she said she no longer had need for it and that he could do with it as he wished — and that's exactly what he's doing.
Kevin has made great effort to start cataloging the humorous ways in which one could possibly reuse a wedding dress around the home. Obviously, none of them are very conventional, but that's what makes it fun. Finding uses for the dress and the process of writing a blog are an unusual, yet practical way to cope with his loss as his humor is frequently mixed with thoughts of being a newly single father.
It's therapeutic and cathartic in it's own right and we're glad that it's being done with humor and a side of creativity. When life gives you lemons (or a wedding dress) you floss your teeth with it let the good times roll.
Below are a few of our favorite uses for the Ex's wedding dress, make sure you check out all the others that have been posted thus far over at My Ex-Wife's Wedding Dress.
1. Scarecrow: Even small gardens need a festive scarecrow. Although this one might scare the neighbors as well, we're pretty sure it will do the trick!
2. Oil Pan: Forget the hassle of trying to catch your oil in a drip pan or old laundry detergent bottle, a wedding dress is where it's at!
3. Dish Rag: Almost everything ends up as a dishrag in our home at some point or another, though we're not sure the wedding dress was at the top of the list.
4.Dog Toy: When you walk into your local big box retailer, dog toys are a hot item these days. With prices that are sky high, why would you fork over hard earned cash when you could use a wedding dress instead?
5. Pasta Strainer: Of all the things that ran through our mind when we first heard about this idea of how to repurpose a wedding dress, this wasn't on the list. Bonus creative points for this one!
Do you have any suggestions on how to creatively reuse a wedding dress? Give us your top 3 ideas in the comments below!
(via: My Ex's Wedding Dress)
(Image: My Ex's Wedding Dress)
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This is so funny. Can't wait to share it with my buddies.
Dye the fabric and use it for upholstery projects.
Would the netting work to strain yogurt to make cheese?
Think of all the money he is saving NOT going to thearpy!
Darth! You look smashing!
Wow that is amusing. I think that the gas cap was my favorite. I would have liked to have seen that in person!
AHH i hate this
If this doesn't get the guy a few pity dates I don't know what will...
This seems kind of off-brand for AT.
Nice pick, @thorndale! I spent Saturday at one of their sales, and my best friend found her dress there. It's a really wonderful and worth-while cause!
I've seen some requests on craigslist and Etsy for repurposing of gowns, but I've never seen these! It's usually using parts of the dress to create a baptism gown for the couple's children, or a nice quilt for the bed. The skirt could make a good Christmas tree skirt, too, with all the embellishment.
Ditto Mskk
That's a great idea Thorndale! We plan on adding a few links for non-profit organizations that accept donated wedding dresses. Brides Against Breast Cancer will be one of the links. Thanks for the input and for checking out my brother's website. Keep checking back in because he has a lot of great material to post.
I think this is so sad! (I didn't have a wedding gown, I got married in a suit -- the gown thing is way too debutante for me! But still...)
Wedding gowns often cost the sky -- seems like a little respect might be in order. Melt down the ring for the precious metal, but pass the dress on to someone to wear, even if it's a twelve-year-old fairy princess of a niece!
I thought it was sad as well. The dress symbolizes the end of a dream that the two of them had together. I hope this helps him to move forward.
Bitter, party of one...
I'm sure there were many young women who would have appreciated the opportunity to wear a lovely gown, but no, the car needed an oil pan?
Oh c'mon, lighten up everyone! Catharsis is a beautiful thing and a wedding dress costs far less than years of therapy...
Many people leave stuff from their marriage boxed up in storage because they can't deal with what it represents, often for years. Since he's clearly too emotional to think "let me donate," at least he's doing some first class acting out of his emotions.
LBhirise - they might have, but all that matters is that the owner finds satisfaction in his use, even if it's not traditional.
off brand or not, this is hilarious! Thank you for sharing AT!
I agree with thorndale and LBhirise - he should have donated the dress to a worthy charity, instead of indulging in all of this wasteful tomfoolery.
Then he should have tucked in his shirt, washed behind his ears, called his mother and eaten some brocolli because there are starving children in Africa you know.
I hope he gets all of his anger out. At least he's not hurting anyone.
This guy rocks! I enjoyed the humor. Funny how some can ignore her passive-aggressive and immature action of leaving ONLY the dress behind. It was her dress and if she wanted to donate it she should have, but it obviously wasn't that important to her. Darth Vader? PRICELESS!
I would have donated it or given it to a little princess for dress-up, but...a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do.
It's much less violent than what my niece did when her husband left her for some, like, 12 year old...it involved his car and a sledge hammer. It was worth the disorderly conduct charges.
In times past, a bride would wear her dress several times afer the wedding for special social events. I remember a friends mother took her gown and made the most beautiful baby bassinette for her first baby.
My own gown metamorphized into a little Bo-Peep costume one Halloween. The next year it became part of a fairy princess costume.
'dutchpotmama'...great point!
Oh, get off the PC wagon! This is a guy we're talking about! If it should've been donated then his poor little broken hearted ex should've been the one to do it! Good on him for being creative and sharing it with everyone- that's value in every sense! Still has gotta hurt at the end of the day though.....have a little compassion geez!
Check his blog and decide for yourselves. Sure, the blog could degenerate, but his on-line ramblings are pretty tame compared to what I've heard over the years from good friends. Good people. Really.
He's concerned for his kids and involved 50:50, and seems pretty self-aware.
Darth-Scarecrow rocks!
This. Is. Too. Funny. As much as I love my own wedding gown, were I to insist on leaving it behind with my husband instead of taking it with me, then gosh darnit, why shouldn't he do what he pleases with it?
AHAHAHAHAH fabulous! This is hilarious. I mean, if she left it behind and told him to have at it... though, maybe I'm psycho, but I'd have burned it. Though his way is much, much more amusing and less scary. LOL this is great... and yeah, less $ on therapy! Have at it, buddy!
Haha, good stuff AT.
It would be funny if it were actually something she liked.
I had a friend who gave her wedding dress to a struggling trans-sexual night club...
I got married in a blue dress. No problem. I wore it for years.
LMFAO!!!! good for him doing whatever he wished with that dress! i would love to help out! hahahahahahaaaa
got my wedding dress at a thrift store, and a few years later, it went back to a different thrift store. I hope someone else was able to enjoy it for their special day as well!
Very disappointed that this made it onto AT.
Not very funny.
Way to go him. I think if your wife leaves you unexpectedly, you gotta do what you gotta do to get your sh*t together, especially if you have kids.
But then I did a wedding wake with a friend. His wife left him, they divorced, we had a little memorial (complete with burying his wedding photo) and then we had a little Irish style wedding wake. Much alcohol, much laughter etc. It was a nice way to help him heal.
If doing odd things to the wedding dress his wife left behind helps this guy heal, then I would say someone HAS used the dress for a good purpose.
When i and my partner divorced, i took everything including the wedding photos and burned them. THAT was a incredible catharsis for me! Props to him for doing that.
mosquito netting. or fly netting for food dishes while on picnics.
Oh, I know! Single father = kid. Every kid wants a cape. Dye a section and you're set. Heck, with a full skirt, that kid could have multiple capes in different colours!
It was super passive-aggressive of the ex-wife to leave it behind, congrats on finding a creative way to get over it and her!
omg crazy stuff!
@rexrayfan - haha your comment made me laugh!
heading on over to his website right now
This guy has to be one of the healthiest (mentally) human beings I have come across in a long time. I wish more of us were this good at dealing with our issues. If the ex-wife had been, maybe they wouldn't be in this spot!
"wasteful tomfoolery"
..I really need to start using that term more on a day-to-day basis.
I agree 100% with outonalimb_09.
This is healthy and funny and it's only a dress people. Probably made from cheap ass polyester and plastic beads.
I enjoyed this, thank you for a good laugh!
I am young and getting a divorce currently. This man's process is totally a good thing. I understand the "end of a dream symbol" and the need to move forward from my heart. I don't know what I am gonna do with my dress, but I am thinking of turning it into a flapper style dress. Should I dye it too? :)
Ouch. This hurts my eyes. (But, then, I'm a new bride).
Love the charity idea, thorndale! Now, I know what I'm doing with my dress. Thank you.
Alyssa 1029, a friend of mine dyed her wedding dress (a simple tea-length number), a very lovely shade of brown. She looks gorgeous in it, and she'll wear it more than once now, for sure. If you aren't worried about remembering the awful divorce connotations, go for it. Re-make it and dye it a colour you love and that you'll wear again and again and again!
Our depression-era grandparents knew what they were doing when they chose dresses they could reuse and repurpose. It's about time we learned from them on this account.
Wow! I did a google search for repurposing a wedding gown...came accross this and was totally surprised to find it on AT (I'm a huge fan of AT)! My only suggestion is using the fabric for a baptism outfit, which I did for my sister-in-law...but I'm looking for something different to do with my gown....and will not be using the ideas presented in this article. :)
I have some much better suggestions for repurposing your wedding dress. Please look at www.sewingby maudy.com under repurposed wedding dresses. Thanks for looking