DIY Wedding Dress Preservation

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I love my wedding dress, and all my accessories. My ensemble was everything I ever pictured. And even better, the dress was only $400 because it was, in fact, a white bridesmaids dress. I don’t know what bride is putting her bridesmaids in this gorgeous gown, but her dress better be incredible to compete with this, and I thank her for ensuring they exist.

Well, I wore the hell outta that dress on my wedding night. I tore holes in it with my stilettos, and I got it dirty, and I didn’t care. I knew I’d never wear it again. I did love the sparkly elements of it though, so I had the idea to cut out the gorgeous beaded neckline and the custom belt, and arrange them with the beaded veil and hair combs in a shadow box as soon as I got home. Then, I put all of those things in a box, and thought about it every time I opened the closet for the next 9 years.

About 6 months ago, I moved the box to my craft table and got the shadow box. About 3 months ago, we started doing craft classes. Now, that box was taking up valuable real estate on my craft table. It was time. Cue the supplies:

  • My wedding dress

  • My veil

  • My hair combs

  • My earrings

  • The custom beaded belt from my wedding dress, preserving some of the buttons

  • Fake flower boutonnières from the wedding

  • Hot glue gun, and lots of glue sticks (I think I used 6)

  • Scissors

  • 14x14 white felt

  • 12x12 2” deep shadow box

  • Floral pins with pearl heads

Steps:

  1. Prepared the pretty things

    1. My veil is beaded/embroidered and gorgeous, and I want my daughters to be able to use it for their wedding if they’re so inclined, so that means no hot glue to hold it down.

      1. I laid it out in front of me, and rolled the edges in on both sides so that when I was done, I had one long vertical veil strip about 5” wide, with the middle prettiest part exposed.

      2. Then starting from the top where the hair comb is, I rolled it down toward the bottom of the veil until I had about 10” of veil left, and it was the best beaded/embroidered part.

      3. Then I used small clamps to hold the roll in place while I worked on placement.

    2. The custom beaded belt. I say custom because the beaded lace was part of another dress, and I asked to have it put on mine. To preserve it:

      1. I cut it out of the dress, keeping a few of the dress buttons. I sealed the cut edges with fabric glue.

      2. Then I placed it so that I had the dress buttons on the right, face up, and about 8” of belt laid out to the left. The rest I rolled up. I didn’t glue or clamp it or anything, just placed it to the side.

    3. The beaded neckline. I cut as much of the sheer beaded neckline out as possible, then I folded the cut edges under and held them in place with glue dots.

    4. The earrings, hair combs, and flowers didn’t need preparing.

  2. Affixed the felt to the backing (the felt holds all the pretty things)

    1. I opened the shadow box and put the backing in front of me, non-hardware side up

    2. I placed the felt on the backing, and then put the backing back onto the shadow box, empty, and used the swivel pegs to hold it in place while I tightened the felt so there were no wrinkles.

    3. While still in place, I hot glued all the way around the edge of the felt with hot glue. All the way around. No gaps.

  3. I planned the layout

    1. I took the backing back off the shadow box, now covered with felt.

    2. I made sure I knew where the top of the backing is (based on where the hanging hardware is). I didn’t actually do this, but I got lucky. If you’re doing this, make sure you check which edge should be the top.

    3. I took one of the black spacing squares from the shadow box assembly for and placed it on top of the backing so I knew my boundaries.

    4. Then I laid out all the pretty things how I wanted them displayed.

  4. Glue and pin

    1. Starting with the strings from the neckline, I arranged and glued. I decided on a heart pattern for the strings, cause you know, love. Once I had those glued down, I glued the rest of the beaded neckline down, again all the way around the edges.

    2. Then the hair pins. Glue. Place.

    3. Then the belt. The belt is also beaded and gorgeous; I don’t know if the girls will ever want it, but I wanted the option. I hot glued the part of the dress I had cut, with the buttons, on the bottom right. Then laid out the belt across the bottom of the frame and pinned the roll on the other side. I didn’t glue anything on the left side, so it’s rescue-able.

    4. The veil. I had a cheap rhinestone wrap bracelet that was perfect to hold the roll in place, and then I pinned the roll to the top left of the frame, and tucked the bottom of the veil under the belt.

    5. Placed and glued the flowers. You’ll notice in the Timelapse (if you watch it) that I mess with the flowers a couple times. The first time I put the frame together I didn’t like how the flowers smushed against the glass, so I took it all out, glued the flowers how I wanted them to smush, and put it together again. Good times.

    6. The earrings. Glue. Done.

    7. Last, a couple loose flowers over some gluey spots.

  5. Assemble. This was a bit of a fight because the veil was so puffy. I fought the backing (now decorated) back on the shadow box though (twice, remember the flowers redo), and I love it.

I threw the rest of that filthy, torn up, cut up, beautiful, gorgeous dress away. Yes, I did.

No regrets, because I get to look at my favorite parts of it every day.