I Most Sincerely Cannot See Me in My Mother's Wedding Dress

There are quite a few reasons why I wouldn't wear my mother's wedding dress, aside from the fact that it no longer exists. It was a beautiful dress, in the same style as Princess Grace's wedding dress. It had a stand-up collar with princess lines which molded to my mother's figure then flared out from the hips to the mid-calf hem. It had three-quarter sleeves and a plunging vee neck from the stand-up collar. It was either cadet blue or a charcoal blue-grey in color.

I'm sure my mother got rid of it after my parents divorced. But if she'd still had it when I married I'm sure she would have tried to get me to wear it. Oh the thought of wearing that dress gives me two very different reactions: 1-"Ew" and a cringe 2- Laughter just at the ridiculous vision of me in that dress, yeah, I definitely would look like the cow wearing the milkmaid's dress. Not the exact look that I was going for on my wedding day. Not at all.

The dress although beautiful, was entirely wrong for me. My mother has large bones in a medium, fairly straight, long torso-ed frame and she's 5"3' and 3/4. The smallest she ever got to was a size 12 and I think her wedding dress was a 14 or 16. She also wears a summer pallet.

I'm now 5'7". I was 5'6" at my wedding. I now wear a size 10, I was a size 14 at my wedding. I have small bones in a medium, short torso-ed, long legged, curvy frame. I wear a spring/autumn pallet. Our styles are also very different. She's a fairly quiet though sociable introvert. I'll talk to almost any stranger I meet. I tend to be a motor-mouth, nonconformist extrovert. The dress suits her style not mine. I'm sorry, but when I see me in that dress, I think "Daddy Long-legs". Only in this case I guess it would be "Mama Long-legs"?

The only similarity between our dresses were the sizes and the fact that my dress also flared out from the hips. Otherwise my dress wasn't anything like hers. It was a floor length ivory dress with a scoop neck, curved empire, gathered bodice and long-sleeves. Over it was a hooded floor length cape with a demi-train. If I were to do it over again, knowing what I know now, It would be a column dress and I'd wear a flower wreath in my hair, definitely no cape or veil to hide my waist. Or if I had the cape it would be bird's eye lace, which is transparent.

In this article I'm listing the specific reasons why I wouldn't be able to wear my mother's wedding dress and perhaps they will help you with your arguments against wearing your mother's dress:

1. Incompatible Color:

You need to consider your own coloring to decide whether the dress will compliment your style on this day where everyone will be looking at those photos for generations to come. Are you both from the same pallet range and do you wear the same colors in that pallet. Even though my son has the same pallet as I, he can wear the orange and bright yellow which I can't. But he can't wear the periwinkle blues and lavenders that I can. Do they cause you to shine or to droop. You're the star of this show and you need to glow with your own style.

2. Wrong Size:

Depending upon the fabric it might be possible to take the dress in. But it would need a professional tailor to do it, unless the dress was originally homemade and is of a non-fussy fabric such as cotton, a cotton blend or a synthetic. Satin, lace, velvet and rayon tend to leave needle tracks or pucker if you have to rip out a seam or need to correct a mistake. There also may be a color difference between the exterior and interior of the dress due to the age of the garment

It's very difficult to take the dress out since professionally made dresses tend to not have much extra seam allowance. I did one time suggest, to her mother, slitting the side seams and reattaching them with white duck tape at intervals along the seam, since the bride had put on weight between the purchase of the dress and the intended wedding date. Of course that was just a joke between us. She wore something else.

3. Uncomplimentary Proportions:

If your mother's proportions are quite different than yours, then it's going to be difficult to readjust the dress to fit you properly, especially if your bone structure, height and frame have nothing in common. The only thing my mother and I have in common are our long necks. Even our medium frames aren't the same due to the height and bone size difference. That's not going to help the fit of the dress.

4. Unsuitable Personal Style:

If you both have similar personalities, then the dress might suit you. But, if you have very different personalities then there's a very good chance that neither of your wardrobes have any similarity to each other. You will wear differing styles to suit your own personalities and your wedding is not the occasion to be your mother's clone.

An extrovert might be able to get away with wearing a formal more sober wedding dress than an introvert might be able to wear an extravagant or dramatic outfit. There's also the country versus the urbanite, the modern versus the nostalgic and the formal versus the casual styles. However, each person would shine more effectively if they used their own style to accentuate their own positive attributes.

5. Doesn't Suit the Style of the Wedding:

My mother's dress was a structured cocktail dress which she wore to the Justice of the Peace for her wedding. Mine was a flowing, 70's style dress which I wore in an outdoor garden wedding.

The dress needs to suit the style of the event. My mother's dress would have been too formal, dark and serious for my wedding. Mine might have suited her wedding, although I think hers fit better. Mine was a bit dramatic for an office setting.

If you have your heart set on a garden, intimate home, candle lit, formal, informal office, traditional church, destination or beach wedding, or your options are limited, like ours were, then you need to consider the setting in relation to how the dress would look. Does it enhance or detract from the rest of the wedding. Do you feel happy and delighted in it? If not, then don't wear it. Choose your own history making style for your own special day.