10 ways to adapt your dress for a postponed wedding

I had an email from a postponing bride this week, wondering what to do with her dress. Not a Miss Bush bride, I hasten to add, but someone who had visited, was smitten by our service, but we hadn’t had ‘the one’ for her.

The bride, Katie, who writes about her postponement here, was wondering if she should sell her dress, buy a cheaper one and for a reduced size wedding.

My answer was an immediate ‘no’ and here are my more considered reasons, along with 10 practical ways to adapt your wedding dress for a postponement.

Buyer’s remorse

Buyer’s remorse is defined as a “feeling of regret experienced after making a purchase, typically one regarded as unnecessary or extravagant.”

I had the same thing with regards to a black PVC trench I bought in Zara about a week before lockdown. Did I really NEED that?

The answer is that we, both Katie and I, were simply operating in the world as we knew it. A world that had certainties like wages and traditions like weddings. The regret for our purchases is not that we didn’t love the items, and still do, it is more a matter of mourning for that time and a realisation that future purchases will be more conscious and considered.

Guilt

A wedding dress is not a guilty pleasure. There are more masculine indulgences that are never held up to such scrutiny. Road bikes, golf club memberships, watches… Investing in a beautiful, ethically sourced item for one of life’s rites of passage is not something to feel guilty about. Are we worried that money was spent on a wedding dress that could now be diverted to something more honourable, practical, prudent? Every one of us could look at our comfortable homes and look at such extravagances. Don’t single out your wedding dress. In general, a wedding dress purchase supports a raft of small and medium size business, mostly female founded, most of the dresses (and all of Miss Bush’s) ethically sourced and produced. There are no giant luxury groups like LVMH (yet) in our trade. Please look at your wedding dress like a locally sourced product, like an egg from a next-door neighbour. Pricier than Primark but from an utterly transparent supply chain.

A New Age Of Secular Puritanism

Who knew Repair Shop would suddenly be so popular? Who knew we would understand the definition of permaculture? Who know that that you could shut down western industrial capitalism? Who knew they could bake so well, make soup, adapt so fast? Are we worried it could tune out joy and frivolity?

This new world doesn’t exclude beautiful, handmade clothes. Wedding dresses, that are made one at a time for each individual bride, are the ultimate in slow fashion. Mindful consuming is made easy by our niche corner of the fashion industry.

Don’t suddenly cast out your beautifully made dress for a cheaper off the peg number whose provenance will be far less clear. Keep the dress, treasure it. Buying another cheap dress feeds into mass consumption. Preowned wedding dresses will rarely sell for more than 50% of their original price. Keep them, love them, make them a piece of family history. I would love to have my Grandmother’s wedding dress, my Mum’s even. They are future vintage heirloom pieces.

Adapt, adapt, adapt… 10 ways to adapt your dress for a postponed wedding

If you do end up having a smaller wedding, there are endless ways to adapt a dress without having to spend more money, trading down or abandoning the dress you loved.

1. Don’t give a damn – I had a spectacular dress for a 20-person wedding. I am a natural born peacock and I loved standing out in a crowded city centre

2. If you are not a peacock think about shortening trains, removing layers of petticoats, shortening the skirt to a cool midi length or think hi-lo to show off your shoes. As seen above on our bride Laura who added a high-lo hem to her Jesus Peiro dress. See more here, with photography by Matt Penberthy.

3. Add some knit wear, the tried and trusted leather biker jacket or a Gucci-esque silk bomber jacket. Pictured; our bride Sarah, who commissioned us to create a jacket made from silk printed with one of her artworks. See more here. with photography by Olivia Moon

4. Switch a veil to millinery to give a cool insouciant look - see above for Chloe wearing a straw hat with one of our Anna Kara dresses earlier this year. Photography by Sophie Duckwork - see more here.

5. Get sleeves re-cut and removed if you switch from winter to summer.

6. Go Goth and add a sweeping velvet cloak and top hat if you have to switch seasons to winter

7. Be your regular self – if you wear glasses and DMs stick with your usual looks to give your silk dress an edgy look. See below for Lisa in a silk Lilly Ingenhoven wrap dress paired with oxblood Dr Martens, shot by Matt Parry.