How To Donate A Wedding Dress
If you are planning on donating your wedding dress, be sure to check if the organization is currently accepting donations. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, some charities are not accepting wedding dresses until further notice, or have implemented certain guidelines when it comes to donating. Keep in mind that many organizations will also require that any dress and/or wedding accessory be professionally cleaned prior to donating.
How You Can Help
Last year, NICU Helping Hands spent more than $35,000 sending gowns to homes and hospitals. We need your help but not with wedding dresses right now. With our wedding gown donations being currently on a waitlist and on an as-needed basis, our focus is on getting our gowns into the hands of those that need them. As our efforts continue to ensure families across the nation have the proper support and resources, our shipping costs are rising due to demand. Even the smallest amount helps tremendously.
Our efforts, no matter how small, can make a lasting difference
Stores For Preowned Wedding Dresses In And Around Toronto
On the hunt for a fabulous preowned wedding dress? Heres where you should be looking in and around Toronto.
If youre a bride-to-be on a budget, consider going with a preowned wedding dress instead of a fancy new frock. Consignment bridal stores carry big designers at a fraction of the cost and, heres the thing, theyve only been worn once or twice, so theyre still in near perfect condition. Whether youre in the market for something vintage or a more modern silhouette, you should be able to find it at one of these stores in and around Toronto.
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Say Yes To Your Dream Dressfor Less
Adorned in Grace Bridal and Formalwear Shops sell new and gently used wedding dresses, special event dresses, and accessories such as veils, belts, shoes, jewelry, and more. We receive donations from generous brides and boutiques all over the country, so we always have a selection of in-style, beautiful dresses in stock for drastically discounted prices, meaning you can have the dazzling look you want without breaking the bank!
Not only will you have the opportunity to find your dream wedding dress at our stores, but you can also feel great because proceeds from every sale are used to fight human trafficking! Truly a community effort, our stores are staffed with volunteers and receive support from many local individuals and businesses such as Fred Meyer, Clear Creek Church, and Solutions Dental.
Donating A Wedding Dress
Donate a wedding dress to charity to make that most special day possible for another woman in your community. The astronomical costs of weddings these days are no secret, and every little bit of assistance helps. Donate a wedding dress. Donate a bridesmaid dress. Donate a mother-of-the-bride dress. Donate a flower girl dress. Donate a veil. Donate wedding shoes. Donate a bag or purse. Donate wedding jewelry. Donate wedding accessories. Donate a shawl or jacket. A number of charities collect wedding dresses for a range of important causes, supporting women with an incarcerated parent, women with breast cancer, women who are working hard to make ends meet, women with special needs, or women in transition. Donate a dress to help these women enjoy a wonderful wedding day.
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Option #: St Anthonys Bridal
St. Anthonys Bridal understands that every bride deserves to feel special on their wedding day. The bridal charity takes used wedding dresses, prepares them to be reused, and lends them to needy brides in the Washington D.C. area, all free of charge. St. Anthonys Bridal also sells wedding gowns at a flat fee of just $150 for brides who want to keep their gown after their special event.
They also accept prom dresses, and pair them with seniors in need in the Washington D.C. area. Dresses can be dropped off at Dogtopia of White Flint on Saturdays from 10am to noon, or they can be mailed to:
Brides Against Breast Cancer
Support the fight against breast cancer through Brides Against Breast Cancer. This nonprofit is dedicated to providing early cancer awareness and detection programs as well as reducing the environmental impact of wedding dress manufacturing. The organization resells pre-owned wedding dresses at affordable prices, using the sales proceeds to help breast cancer causes.
Accepted items: Wedding dresses of 35 years in excellent condition and bridal accessories.
How to donate: Use the donation form on the website, email, or contact client service directly to receive shipping instructions.
COVID-19 update: The organization continues to accept wedding dress donations through the mail and is relaunching its online store in early 2021.
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Donate Your Wedding Dress To Our Charity In Columbus Ohio
Donate your used wedding dress after the special day and help our Columbus area charity lend support to valuable kidney disease awareness and prevention programs throughout Ohio. National Kidney Services works with the National Kidney Foundation to reduce the prevalence of this debilitating illness. All of the proceeds generated from your wedding dress donation, or your donation of other used clothes and household items, goes directly to this non-profit health organization.
Not only can you donate your wedding dress to our charity, but there are many other ways to reduce waste and do some good deeds both before and after your wedding. Consider:
- Donating used bridesmaidsdresses to NKS
- Giving flowers to local hospitals or nursing homes after the ceremony
- Taking leftover food from the reception to local food banks or homeless shelters
- Donating wedding decorations and extra party favors to NKS
- Printing your wedding invitations on recycled or plantable paper
- Asking guests to make charitable donations in your name instead of giving material gifts
*To the fullest extent allowed by law
The Angel Gown Program
NICU Helping Hands Angel Gown® Program began in 2013 because we recognized there was an overwhelming need for better support for families who lost a baby. Our Angel Gown® Program provides comfort for bereaved families through the gift of a beautiful custom made gown for final photos and for burial services. We provide support resources and mentoring programs for bereaved families as well. There is no greater gift that can be given to a grieving family than affirming the importance of the life of their child by offering the simple gift of our Angel Gown® Garments and supporting them emotionally and educationally afterwards.
Our program is made possible because of wonderful donors and volunteers who have often experienced the loss of their own children or of another loved one. Brides from around the world donate their precious wedding gowns to NICU Helping Hands. The wedding gowns are then distributed to our team of over 180 seamstresses throughout the United States to convert into perfectly made garments that a family will use to wrap their precious baby in for their final journey. Our garments are a gift of love from both a bride and a seamstress to honor not only a precious baby but their family as well.
It is a privilege for us to provide gowns free of charge to any hospital or family requesting our Angel Gown® Program garments. Please note: Our Angel Gown® Program is a nationally registered and trademarked program and is available across the United States.
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Other Ways To Declutter Your Bridal Gown
If you choose not to donate the dress, here are other ways you can declutter your wedding gown and get it out of your home.
Repurpose The Dress Fabric Into A Different Keepsake
You could repurpose the dress fabric to make it something else. Some great ideas for this include:
- Christening or baptism gown
- Pillow, such as a ring bearer’s pillow that a child can walk down the aisle at another wedding
- Bag or clutch, used for another wedding or formal occasion
- Christmas tree skirt
Sell Your Wedding Gown
You can also sell your wedding dress at a discounted rate to someone looking for a lower cost gown.
This works best when the gown is in good condition, clean, and relatively new so it’s still in style.
There are tons of great places to sell your wedding dress and make a few dollars while giving someone else a great deal on a beautiful gown. You can easily post it on Craigslist, eBay, local swap shop or classified pages and even in your local newspaper or consignment shop.
You can get even more ideas for places to donate items when decluttering your home, plus do’s and don’ts for what to donate to charities, in my donate clutter section of the site.
Donate Your Wedding Dress: 5 Charities That Accept Used Wedding Gowns
Our story about a generous bride paying it forward by giving away her dress has generated a lot of interest on our site from other brides — and even some vendors — who would also like to give back.
If you’d like to donate your dress, here are five charities that accept used wedding gowns. Click through the slideshow to see where the profits go and to contact the charities. If you know a bride who could use a wedding dress, read the original story and then email to get in contact with the bride.
Recommended Reading: Which Ring Goes On First Engagement Or Wedding
How I Decided To Donate My Wedding Dress
I asked myself the same questions and came to this conclusion:
I am not going to wear my wedding dress ever again . If I ever have a daughter, she is not going to want to wear it either and I would want her to choose her own dress!
So Im literally just moving it around from place to place.
For 11 years, my dress hung in the back of five different guest room closets. When it came to us downsizing into the RV, I decided I wasnt going to let it hang in our storage unit while we traveled.
It was time to let it go.
I have some advice for you if you decide to do the same thing.
There Is No One Right Decision About Whether To Keep Or Get Rid Of Your Wedding Gown
Before we get into the heart of the article though, I do want to acknowledge that even discussing whether to declutter your wedding dress can be a touchy subject for some people.
There’s a lot of emotion caught up in wedding gowns. For some that emotion is positive, and for others it is negative.
These emotions are often less about the dress itself than about the marriage and the memories that the gown represents.
There is nothing wrong with choosing to keep your wedding dress and storing it. There is equally nothing wrong with donating or using it for a keepsake item. The choice is yours, and yours alone. Do what feels right to you.
If you decide to keep the dress make sure you’re storing it properly. You can check out my general tips for clothes storage here for ideas of where and how to store this keepsake and sentimental item.
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Ideas For Where To Donate Your Wedding Dress
If you do decide to get rid of your wedding gown there are lots of different ways to get it out of your home. One of the most popular ways is wedding dress donation.
Here are some places you could donate your gown:
1. Donate to a local theater group. When the group does plays that include a wedding these dresses can help immensely.
2. Donate to a charity to give your wedding dress to somone else for use, or will re-sell it to give the profits to a charitable cause.
3. Angel Gown programs. There are many of these Angel Gown programs across the country where talented seamstresses and tailors volunteer their time to turn wedding dresses into gowns for babies who passed away at birth.
Since many of these groups are run by a small set of volunteers they don’t always take new donations when they’ve got an excess of old bridal gowns. You have to watch when they re-open for new donations sometimes. Here are a few of the organizations, but you can always do an Internet search for even more of them.
Whats The Point Of Keeping It
Everyone I talk to who hasnt donated their wedding dress says one of the following things to me:
- But there are so many memories attached to it!
- I couldnt imagine anyone else wearing my dress
- I want to wear it again someday to renew my vows
- My daughter might want it for her wedding
- If I get rid of my wedding dress, my marriage would be doomed
My response is always the same: think about the purpose of your wedding dress.
Didnt it serve its purpose on your wedding day? Does it serve any actual purpose now? Or are you attaching memories to a thing youre not actively using or enjoying?
And no, the once-a-year decluttering of your closet, when you fondly fawn over the dress in the very back, doesnt count.
Because even if your wedding dress has been carefully preserved and sealed in a box, but never pulled out, worn again, or enjoyed, is it really that important to you?
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Donate Your Wedding Dressbut Where
Many popular local donation sites such as Goodwill and Salvation Army will accept wedding dress donations. Although Im a huge fan of both of these organizations, it was really important to me that I know specifically who my donated dress would be helping .
Having this information makes it easier for me to imagine the dress bringing joy to its new owner, which makes it much easier for me to part with it.
If you do a simple internet search for donate your wedding dress, youll find some great resources out there, including preownedweddingdresses.com and donatemyweddingdress.org, that provide a comprehensive directory of wedding dress donation options.
Here are a few of the ones I checked out:
Brides Across America This awesome charity helps US military brides by giving them free wedding dresses.
Wish Upon A Wedding Donate your dress to Wish Upon a Wedding and help couples facing terminal illness celebrate their dream wedding or vow renewal. Good stuff.
Fairytale Brides on a Shoestring â Donations to this nonprofit bridal boutique provide reduced price bridal gowns and accessories for underprivileged women in the D.C. area. Fairytale Brides on a Shoestring also provides opportunities for local high school students to learn about the fashion industry and gain retail work experience.
