I have children from a previous marriage and I am married to my second husband. My problem is, I have my wedding dress and other misc. things from my first marriage that I don't really want around but I hate to toss anything that my kids may want one day. Is is worth keeping for them or is it just trash? I gave my oldest son the family pictures.
I am leaning towards tossing....any advice? Thanks!!
If your children are old enough, just ask. My parents are still amazed what was, and still is important to me. And unfortunately at least my mum has a strong tendency to unclutter exactly what i treasure. Anything from my favourite barbie doll years ago (which then got replaced, and then decluttered again) to old fairy tale books (luckily replaced from ebay) to, yes, my mum's wedding dress.
So if you can at all involve your kids, do it. If they have moved out already and are not often home, send pictures and ask if they want to keep anything.It could save a lot of heartache, and you might get some interesting insights into your children's minds.
Good advice, Linada! Yeah, we purged my son's hot wheels from the 70s, and now they are selling for hundreds on ebay. :(
If no one wants the wedding dress, Sky, you could sell it on ebay!
Claycat, I think you are right. I have sons and they are grown. I've given them their stuff for their children but it's the more personal things that make me hesitate.
I agree. After my grandmothers passed, my mom and I had very different views on what to keep - she would have tossed much of what I had kept.
I recently packed up a set of dishes that my mom gave me when my ex-husband and I split 5 1/2 years ago. They were (most of) a set that she bought in the early 1980s and we'd used as a family. I've since replaced them with stuff that's more my style: American diner-ware that I've picked up by twos and threes in various thrift stores and yard sales. As I was packing up the dishes, I caught myself thinking, "Oh, I should keep these for when my daughter gets her first apartment!"
No. No, no, NO. When my daughter gets her first apartment, I'll go thrift-shopping with her or get her a set of new, low-priced Corelle ware. In the meantime, I'm not storing 30-odd pieces of stoneware from the 1980s in my home! They're going to an acquaintance who works for the thrift store where I volunteer a few hours every week. He'll be using them in a few months; my daughter wouldn't be using them for a decade or more.
(I asked my mom first if she wanted them back. She said no!)
Kids are packrats, generally. They hate change. My mom is not a packrat, and painfully to me at the time, decluttered tons of stuff I wanted to keep. Now I am grateful. Not only do I not have the burden of all this sentimental stuff (take a photo as Erin suggests), but unlike so many of my friends, I will not have a seriously cluttered house to deal with when she dies.
I do not have my own wedding dress--which was blue velvet and street length--I might theoretically have worn it again, but didn't, so it went.I am still married to my first husband after 20 years. We are still struggling with different levels of, uh, archivism. Nonetheless, I have learned a lot about keeping only the things you really use around you and saving space for future good things to come my way.
If you keep, say, a wedding dress, which is bulky and tricky to really keep usable, you are setting up an expectation, perhaps, that it will be worn, and that the person who would be wearing it will fit into it. I say let it all go. Take a photo.
As far as the wedding dress goes, if YOU don't want to keep it, my advice is to toss it. Unless the dress is within a couple of years old and your daughter(s) are about to get married, the odds that they will even want wear it are quite low. (I certainly wouldn't have worn a wedding dress that my mother wore in the 1980s! The style is far too outdated.)
As for the other things...ask yourself if your mom had offered the same thing to you, would you want it to keep it?
Thanks for all the great advice. I only have sons so the wedding dress is in the trash. Kbfenner....you are right, why do we ever keep all this crap?
Oooh! I hope you didn't throw your dress away yet. A great idea for old wedding dresses is to donate it to a charity that makes burial gowns for babies. Morbid, I know, but they really, really appreciate the thoughtfulness and it is often a charity that goes unnoticed. I live in Omaha, Nebr., and this was coordinated through a Catholic charity. I felt much better about donating my gown to help out grieving parents. Just a suggestion!
punkrockgirl....An excellent idea but my dress isn't the typical wedding dress. It is a simple pink sheath. Also, not in perfect condition or I would donate it somewhere.
That's not morbid, it is a great idea.
Alternatives for a dress (or other "special wear" clothing) from a past era:
"renovate / remodel" it - some items can be brought up to date with a few simple changes to sleeves or hem lengths, even if they aren't used for the same purpose (e.g. wedding dress converted to street dress)
if it isn't in good enough condition to use as a whole, it may still be ok in parts for some other purpose such as lace trim on another article of clothing or cut into strips for quilting
I was in a bad marriage for 17 years. Now I have a new relationship and a baby from this relationship. My wedding dress from my marriage? I tossed it in the trash bin.
Ladies, Ladies, Ladies - please don't just toss those wedding dresses! Take them to a local theater or opera group or the high school drama teacher to be used as costumes. Same goes for old prom dresses and other good vintage things that don't sell for much unless they are in perfect condition. They need costumes for plays set in other eras and their costume department can alter and re-make to fit the actress.
My husband left when my daughter was 6 yrs old. At the ripe old age of 30, she asked me about pictures of our wedding. I had kept the album so we got it out and went through it together. She took the ones of her Dad and his family members. The positive surprise for me was that there were excellent photos of my grandparents who are long gone so I made myself a new album of lovely professional photos of the people I love.
I have one item left from my marriage. (I divorced my starter husband 17 years ago.) It's a small wood table and my mother needlepointed the top.
I have it in storage and am deciding what to do with it.
The fact that my mother stitched the top and paid to ship this piece to me means a lot. On the other hand, it does not match my furniture that well and I only wish to surround myself with things I love!
I donated, gifted, recycled, and tossed everything else from my marriage. It took a few years, I do not think I have any furniture, lamps, clothing, or jewelry from that unhappy time of my life. Of course, I still have many photos but I consider those part of my history and thus, they remain.
My wedding dress was a designer suit that I then wore after the wedding. I finally gave it away when I gained weight and it no longer fit!
I'm an adult and my parents divorced when I was in college. My mom is now dead, but the only thing I really wanted from their married life was the wedding memory book (included wedding photos, newspaper clippings, shower info, cards, etc). They were married for 25 years, so I remember them being married.
Don't get rid of your wedding dress, do a "trash the dress" (google it!) session with your favorite photographer first! Basically it's a photo shoot where you take pictures you wouldn't normally take with a wedding dress for fear of ruining it (think, playing in the ocean with your new husband, for example). Usually the dress is only minimally damaged (if at all), and can still be donated. It's a fun way to get more use out of your dress before getting rid of it, and an excuse to get some updated romantic couple pictures!
@kbfenner: "I am still married to my first husband after 20 years. We are still struggling with different levels of, uh, archivism."
As an archivist, this made me giggle. I love it!
nellieb: Could you take the needlepoint top off and frame it? (Or make a pillow of it, or something similar...) The new setting might help it work better with your other decor, and at least it would be a smaller thing to store.
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