Wearing my mother's 1980s wedding dress

If you have always liked the idea of wearing your mother's wedding dress but are hesitant to do so due to personal style and taste, my advice is not to rule it out quite yet!

Take a quick look at my mother's wedding dress...

Now imagine me a 23-year-old millennial in 2011 wearing that? Doesn't sit right, does it?

Well, I did, and I am going to tell you how I made it my own while keeping the integrity of the dress!

I bet you can guess what decade my mom got married in judging by these photos! I don't know why the theme for 80s wedding gowns was, "Let's make the bride looking like a floating head on top a plethora of ruffles and lace." Nonetheless, this was a fashionable look for brides during that decade.

My mom was pregnant with me when she got married in this dress, and she preserved it in the event I wanted to wear it on my big day. My mom never once made me feel pressured to wear the dress, nor would she have been disappointed if I didn't. She always wanted to wear her mother's wedding dress, and since my grandmother didn't hold on to hers's, my mother wanted to make sure I at least had the option.

As a young girl, I always thought the dress was beautiful, but when my time to get married came, I realized that as much as I loved the idea of wearing something meaningful, it needed to reflect my style.

My grandmother grew up making clothes. She designed and made all my mother's and my dance costumes throughout our lives. With my grandmother's talents, I knew she could get this dress to reflect my style while keeping its integrity. She created a new dress for me using ONLY the materials from my mother's wedding gown. Since it was my grandmother creating this dress for me, it made my wedding gown even more meaningful!

So here is what we did! We took off all the material that made the dress so puffy. From the whole first layer of the bottom portion to the turtleneck lace neckline, to the sleeves. Underneath all that was beautiful silk-like material, and this became the dress you now see! The top part had a lot of beautiful and intricate beading, so we did not touch any of that. My grandmother did adjust the top to a subtle sweetheart neckline to counteract the removal of the lace turtleneck.

My veil, train, and straps were made from the lace that was originally on the dress.

Basically, underneath all that extra material was a beautiful dress! One of my favorite details is the vintage style buttons on the back! Those will always be so timeless and elegant on any wedding gown, in my opinion. I kept the large bow on the back as an ode to the original design.

As I said above, if you have always liked the idea of wearing your mother's wedding dress but are hesitant to do so due to personal style and taste, my advice is not to rule it out quite yet! With a few alterations, creativity, and a little imagination, you can create the wedding dress of your dreams out of something extremely meaningful!