It All Started With A Recycled Wedding Dress

When my oldest daughter Tara tied the knot, I decided to make the ring bearer pillow for her wedding celebration. For all you moms out there who think your daughter's will want to wear your old wedding dress, lets just say, I've yet to see it happen. They grow up and embrace their own trends and styles.  In other words, they get their own sense of taste and their own opinion on clothing (and everything else imaginable).  I hate when that happens, in my experience, around age two when they become enamored with the word NO and are not afraid to use it.

What better way to recycle something that is just taking up space, than to make something meaningful and new out of it? My wedding dress had been hanging in the closet gathering dust for years because, I was too busy putting kids through private school to have it hermetically sealed and boxed for $800 bucks.  I breathed new life into it per-say.  So, I used some of the material from my own wedding dress to make the ring bearer pillow for my first daughter Tara's wedding. I wish I could show you a picture of it but, I'm too afraid to ask her if she still has it.  I'm a little over emotional-like right now.

Now that my second oldest daughter Kate, is getting married, I got out my scissors and recycled my dress once again.  I'm not a seamstress, (I may have mentioned that once or twice before) but I can sew a somewhat straight line in a pinch.  I cannot measure worth a darn, so I eyeball the project and hope for the best.  I've got three more kids to marry off and I hope to force them carry on the tradition of making from my own wedding dress, their ring bearer pillows with my own little hands.

My wedding dress was ivory satin with a sheer overlay.  I let Kate choose some of her favorite sea shells to embellish her pillow.  They were a salute to all the happy memories she has had living here, from bright days basking in the sunshine, to competing in many surf competitions all through high school, and to bonfires and parties by moonlight. I'm just guessing about the bonfires and parties by moonlight because I'm pretty sure her father and I didn't sanction very many of those.

Kate and her favorite surfing partner, her baby sister Maggie.

I used the satin material from my dress to cover a pillow which I formed from batting.  I then glue gunned her favorite shells right onto the pillow before I covered it with the sheer overlay and ribbon.  Do you think it is appropriate to use the terms,"glue or gun" when one speaks of weddings?

This is Kate and Justin when they first met at college three years ago.

This is them all in love and mushy-like, just before they got engaged last February.

Last summer I snapped this photo of the love birds and if only someone would get the engagement pictures off their fiance's computer and email them to their mommy, I'd have some really, really, cute official engagement photos to show ya.  You guys are always so patient with me though, so I know you'll hang in and when you're a captive audience again, I'll have all the engagement pictures, various parties and such and the official wedding pictures to share very soon.   Because you know I love you like that.

Of course my pup Saint Kieran, was "helping" by giving me moral support through my entire pillow project.  He made sure that none of the batting got away!

I'm not sure what kind of help this gal was.  Perhaps she was supporting me in spirit.

Oooh, so many pearls to choose from. I sewed the (faux) pearls on by hand during the many hours I have spent sitting on the sofa watching Mr. Cottage By The Sea, pace the floor and say bad words while watching The Charger's lose football games this season. OH FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY CHARGERS - BRING IT ON!  A woman can only take so much pacing.  The man is beating a path in my rug.

We held auditions for the job of ring bearer, and although this guy was a close second...and very hard to resist -

This one succumbed to the tickle monster and won out in the end.

This is what the website, "The Knot" has to say about the duties of the ring bearer.

The ring bearer, traditionally a small boy aged four to eight, walks 


down the aisle just before the flower girl (if there is one), carrying a 


pillow with two rings tied to it. Since it's not the greatest idea to 


entrust gold rings to a rambunctious 6-year-old, the rings are usually 


fakes.

Are you the trusting sort? Well, if you trust the little tyke with your

jewelry, at least have someone hand him the pillow replete with real

rings just before he begins trekking down the aisle. If he gets hold of

them too far in advance, it's more likely he'll lose them.

Nicholas are you reading this?  Nicholas can you read?

All I can say is, Nicholas fits the description above.  He's a small boy, age five, and he is definitely rambunctious.  In answer to that question in the second paragraph about being the trusting sort, lets just say I think we're gonna go with the fake rings on the pillow.  Not that we don't trust him,  look at that face, it's just that he is rambunctious and ... well... Nick will be accompanied down the aisle by one of his older brothers Dayne, who is eight.  Accompanying them will be their little sister Emma who will be our flower girl. Big brothers Ty and Cael will be altar servers and baby Abigail will be the topping on the cake as always, with all her adorable cuteness.  Nicholas calls her "Honey Heart" and it sure does fit, don't ya think?

 It's Honey Hearts momma for whom I made that first pillow so many years ago.  It must have been good luck because Abigail Rose is their 6th child.  I like to think it's all because of the prayers I prayed for their marriage whilst making that first ring bearer pillow from my wedding dress.  I'm hoping it will be the same for my daughter Kate and her new husband Justin. If you want lots of wee grand babies this cute just let me know and I'll see what I can do for ya. 

For a DIY project that started out on a wing and a prayer, I think it turned out real purty.  A tad bit of hand embroidery to further personalize with their names and wedding date, and a pillow is born!

  Kate and Justin

11.12.11

Much more to come...