trash the dress
I read Unclutterer. In a quest to declutter my life I clutter my online life reading about how to declutter my life. How's that then? Anyway, quest for a tidy life aside, one of the entries on unclutterer was about wedding dresses.
I have a confession. I still have mine. Not from the second time because I had no dress then, but from the first time when I was 18.
My mom made my dress. It was cream silk with a princess line bodice to disguise what almost passed for a belly. The petticoat underneath was cotton and mom sewed cotton lace onto the edge. The neckline was beaded and sequined and she sewed each one on by hand, painstakingly. I can imagine her sat in the lounge at home, a cigarette burning in the ashtray while she worked on the bodice of the dress that her 18 year old daughter would wear to her shotgun wedding. I never really thought, until now, of how much she must have cared about me to put that much effort into making my dress.
So I still have it. It's in a box in the storage room downstairs with other mementos from my previous life. The evening bag that my gran gave me, diamante and black silk; the costume jewellery, all broken that my aunt passed onto me after gran died. Some other little things that I kept because I'm sentimental (really).
Unclutterer suggests trashing the dress. Taking photographs of it and then getting rid of it. Remaking it into something else. (Not keeping it for your teenage daughter to wear to her own shotgun wedding.)
I love the photos they link to on Trash the Dress.
What do you think? Should I trash my dress?
DO NOT trash the dress! I'm thinking unclutterer is written by somebody who has more than enough treasures to keep. Unlike me in any case, who treasures every small thing that reminds me of how I grew up. And that's all contained in one box, thanks to my mom who throughout our travels, managed to keep pictures, paintings and stories that I used to write when I was small :-)
I'm ever so grateful!
No, no...keep the dress. I'm all about decluttering. After moving at least once a year until 2 years ago, I've become quite good at it. The idea of taking photographs of the things you cherish is quite excellent. I did that to almost my entire wardrobe right before I moved from the States to the Netherlands.
I don't know the relationship you have with your mother. But if it was at all good, keep it for that reason. Tell the story about it again. I'm all for letting go of past lives, but your mother...hmmmmm....relationships between mothers and daughters tend to be complicated at best. But she loved you. And this dress reminds you of it.
This is one of your most beautiful entries yet.
Trash the dress! Life and everything else is transient, you won't hold on to the moment by holding onto the dress. Come over to the lake and I'll take a photo of you wearing it whilst floating รก la Trash the Dress website. Then we'll burn it.
All I can say is that if I had anything - ANYTHING - hand made by anyone in my family (I mean, I'd settle for a potholder, for god's sake), I'd think I was about the luckiest person in the world. I have nothing from the generations before me, other than what has accidentally passed down to me through my genes - a tendency to worry excessively, bad skin, thin hair, weight issues. Given a choice, I'd take the dress and trash the book.
Don't trash it. I'm a bit of a sentimentalist... You should keep the dress.
The unclutterer said that his wife kept the dress and trashed the rest - and I'm with the wife ;)
Oooh, you're speaking my language. I have been on a declutter trip for a while now, made tremendously difficult by my husband who believes that EVERYTHING shuld be kept, particularly cardboard bozes (in case they come in useful later), every nut, bolt and screw he has ever run across in his life, lights that no longer work and have been replaced (but you never know, we could use it for spare parts) etc etc etc. It drives me insane.
As for the dress, tricky. I still have mine (well, in storage somewhere...) but I do support the idea of not keeping it forever - I like the photo idea. But your case is a little different - yours isn't a symbol of your first marriage - it's a reminder of how much your mother loved you. And that's not something anybody should ever throw away.
*Love& the Ophelia pics on the TTD site!
Hi Ash,
Do not trash the dress!!
I was not allowed to keep my 'married at 18 and also a shotgun wedding' dress (in Harare too). I am not sure why, mother's guilt? The fact it was a cream evening dress of hers worn with a Juliet cap? I dunno, I bet she threw it away.
Do not trash the dress!
xxxx