The Bridal Gallery - add a sentimental touch to your wedding!

You may have seen the trend of brides altering their mother's wedding dress to wear for a rehearsal dinner dress or even as their actual wedding gown. It's an amazing idea to take something special and give it new life. Here's my problem though... I don't think I could ever take scissors to my mom's wedding dress. So, I offer another alternative; one where the original dress is still taken out of the attic to have its full beauty displayed once again in honor of your mother, and other woman in the families. The Bridal Gallery.

Make sure to grab a photo of you with all the dresses! Photo courtesy of Erica Gaskill Photography

One of the most frequent comments I got at my wedding was how cool (that is indeed the word that was used) it was to see wedding dresses from mine adn my husband's family. These dresses sat tucked away for years and years, but we gave them a new purpose and a second chance to be cherished!

Making this happen is pretty simple and doesn't require a ton of moving parts.

1. Dress forms. We were able to collect forms from Facebook Marketplace, yard sales, and thrift stores for a relatively low cost. Another option would be hanging the dresses on decorative hangers, but I wanted these poofy dresses to be at their best!

2. Photos of each bride. We chose to display our mother's and grandmother's dresses. I wanted our guests to see these women on their special day, so we had 8x10 photos printed of each one and put them in gold frames.

3. Labels. Your guests will want to know who's who! I made small labels that sat in front of each dress with the relationship (ex: mother of the groom), their maiden name and who they married, and their wedding date.

To complete everything, I added a sign explaining what the whole concept was. A bonus idea (that I'll talk about in another post), is adding a photo album filled with images from all the brides throughout your families on their special day. This is a beautiful way to honor women in each family and create a family heirloom album that can be used for generations to come!

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