The vows are in! You’ve pledged to love and to cherish one another, in sickness and in health, ’til death do you part. But what about the fate of that beautiful dress? Should you treasure it for decades and pass it on to your daughter or donate it to a less fortunate bride? Lol!! What, do you hate fun? Of course it’s neither of those things. Now that you have the dress in your clutches, why pass up the chance to unleash your most primal impulses on that $2,000 piece of taffeta? Here are some ways to trash your dress that will also hurt the feelings of the person who is the reason you bought it.
- Shit-talk the Dress
Trashing your dress/marriage can start at the reception! Mock your dress. Mock its silhouette, and the crunchy sound it makes when you move. Your dress looks fat. Make sure it understands that you don’t know what you ever saw in it, it is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your life, and you should have gone with the tea-length Naeem Khan like your heart told you. Withhold all appreciation. Your new husband will shrink away from this previously unseen side of you, dreading the day you turn this vitriol on him.
- Neglect the Dress
One day together is fine, but a lifetime is a marathon. You need a break from looking at that ball and chain of a gown. So roll those 12 hand-stitched yards of shantung into a ball and wedge it in a closet where you can forget it exists, where it never hears your voice, where it has no other gowns to talk to, just your ugly Christmas sweaters and a bunch of empty dry cleaning bags. Your spouse will see you doing this in your underwear immediately after the wedding and wonder, terrified, what he’s gotten himself into.
- Deny the Dress the Healing Power of Touch
If you choose to sleep in the same bed with your dress, never touch it. Steal all of its blankets too. If a fold of the appliquéd skirt or Alençon lace sleeve rustles over to your side, pretend you’re asleep. That poor life mate of yours will reach out for you in the dark, and maybe you’ll reach for him too, but for how long? Probably only a few more months before this marriage is as yellowed and frayed as your poor, neglected dress. You go, girl!
- Cheat on the Dress
Photoshop another dress into your wedding album and invalidate your original dress’s contribution to your life. Or, if you really want to go for it, throw something else on right before the ceremony, or just don’t show up at all. Your dress will feel pretty bad, but not as bad as your groom-to-be, who will be wondering, even at the altar, how many of these warning signs he missed.
- Intimidate and Control the Dress
Your dress is a pile of lace and peau de soie satin that someone hand-beaded for 100 hours. It is a dead thing. You are a human, possessed of consciousness and will. Show it who’s boss. Monitor its socialization with other formalwear. Handle it roughly; wash without care. Threaten to store it in a non-cedar closet. Your traumatized dress and/or human partner will almost certainly sneak out of the house in the dead of night in the hopes of building a better life elsewhere.
- Gaslight the Dress
Never apologize. Tell your dress that the issues it has been raising with you—the neglect, negativity, infidelity, physical coldness—are all crazy and invented and if it weren’t such a stupid excuse for a garment, you wouldn’t have to treat it this way. It is a presumptuous pillowcase in disguise, it is lucky to be with you, and it needs to watch itself or it might lose you. Make sure your husband is standing right behind the dress to let him know that this partnership isn’t going anywhere good!
- Actually Pour Gas on the Dress and Set it Aflame
This unequivocally says, “We are no longer a match,” to both you and your terrified new spouse.
There you have it—a blooming bouquet of ways to destroy the symbol of your commitment to another human being. Happy trashing!
