Wedding Dress Collection

Ok, I will admit that I have an obsession for wedding dresses. I never meant to collect them it just sorta happened. It all started with a trip to my favorite thrift store. There was this hand made wedding dress just hanging there on the rack. I loved the lace and fabric it was made out of, it was like a cotton gauze fabric. When I looked at the tag it said $25, and I just couldn't pass up a deal like that! I figured I would use it in a display one day when I had a shop of my own. So it went home with me and now hangs upstairs in my guest room. Here is that awesome dress:

Of course these pictures don't do it justice, they never do on dresses like this. This is the back, the train actually starts from the top of this dress, it sorta looks like a long night gown.

This is the bottom

Ok up next is a great 50's style (I think?) dress that I found at a church thrift store for $20! Of course I couldn't pass it up! This dress is displayed in a corner in my room. I have gotten more grief from some of my friends over this! They see it and say "what the hell? WHY do you have that there?" My crazy friend Kim said it's creepy like a headless ghost watching you at night! She cant believe my hubby is ok with it being there! Honestly I can't believe he is either. I just put it there one day and he never said anything about it.

And here's the back. I love the layered ruffles

So my whole plan for buying old wedding dresses was to cut them up and use the beautiful fabric and lace in my projects. Where else are you going to find that kind of fabric for so cheap? Well that was the plan.......but here's the deal, I got these beautiful dresses home and then I couldn't bear to cut them up! This is how the crazy collecting started. 

Ok, so one day I'm on one of those Facebook yard sale sights and a lady is selling vintage wedding dresses for $20 each!! Are you kidding?? Yes, you guessed right, I bought all 5! Well two of those dresses weren't vintage they were new, one was stunning so I bought it, one was very plain but I figured I could dye it a pale pink and make something amazing so I got that one too.

This is a beautiful 50's dress, most of my friends want to put this one on:

Ok I planned to finally cut this dress up for the material, yep I made a decision... I'm really gonna do it this time, after all that's why I bought it right?

UNTIL I see the sleeves! Oh hell, here we go again! I can't cut it up!!!

This was one of the new ones, and as I mentioned before the pictures just don't do it justice! It's so pretty in person! The back laces up like a corset

Close up pic of the beading 

This is the plain one, so plain in fact I actually put it in the washing machine and washed it! It didn't ruin it! It came out sparkling white! I'm gonna dye this one a pale pink!

The back is pretty cool, the tiny buttons go all the way down the length of the dress

This one was a steal! I found it 1/2 off at my favorite thrift store! How much you ask?? You guessed it 20 BUCKS! It's a Christie Wu dress! (Whoever that is) that's what the tag says. The beading and sheer lace on this one is exquisite! NO WAY am I cutting this up! Funny thing about this dress.... The only person I could find to actually fit in this dress was my 85 lb child! 

Ok this one is definitely vintage. And by this picture I'm sure your saying "You NEED to cut this one up" right?? Hell it's already falling apart! Well, I do agree with you....BUT (notice there is always a "but") my friend Karen from AshLynn Rose boutique gave this to me! She said DON'T cut it up, it's for your collection! So my hands are tied on this one!

The train is long and pretty, you know this was a stunning dress back in its hey day. I think it's from the 30's or 40's

Next up is yours truly! Yeah, I was married in the 80's and I wanted the foo fooiest (is that even a Word??) dress I could find! You can't tell by these pictures but it was pretty! I asked all three of my girls "don't you want to wear your mama's dress one day?

- The oldest said "Hell NO!" 

- The middle child said "UUHH NO!"

- The youngest gave me a look like "eew WHY would you ask me that??" 

LOL gotta love daughters! This may be a dress I cut up for crafts!

This was my most expensive purchase at a whopping $45! Yeah that's more than I ever wanna pay BUT there was just something about this dress that I loved! It is handmade and the skirt fabric is very sheer and soft, it's on a mannequin as a display piece, I actually bought it for that purpose.

2 weeks ago my daughter comes home from college to get some of her stuff, she has a friend with her and her friend sees one of the dresses hanging in the guest room Andradae asks her "oh, is that your moms wedding dress?" My daughter says "no, hers is in the closet" she opens the closet and there are 7 dresses hanging up and her friend asks why does she have all these dresses? My daughter didn't know my collection had grown and she said the look on her friends face was priceless! She laughed and said "because my mom is crazy!"

I've also started to collect the gorgeous veils that go with these amazing dresses, I mean who can pass up something so beautiful, right?

This one actually came with one of the dresses