How to Re-use Your Bridal Ensemble for Halloween
Halloween and weddings are surprisingly similar. Both put a lot of pressure on us to be crafty and clever, and force us to wear potentially very weather-inappropriate clothing.
Halloween can provide a bounty of things to re-use at your wedding. For example, the fabric from my costume last year (the Statue of Liberty circa 1890) became the top of our wedding chuppah:
And then of course there’s the bonanza of items for a silly photo station you can cull from friends and family’s Halloween costumes, or from the closeout sales at those pop-up Halloween stores the day after Halloween.
So it’s only fair that your wedding can provide materials to reuse for Halloween. Here’s some ideas for how to repurpose your wedding duds as Halloween costumes.
If your dress is trashed or you are willing to trash it:
- Runaway Bride. The classic, of course. Pop on some running sneakers and a sweat band. For an added touch may I suggest a falling-apart up-do?
- Bridezilla. Sure, it perpetuates one of the most obnoxious stereotypes about weddings there is, but there is something undeniably fun about pairing a fancy white gown and rubber lizard hands and a monster mask. COUPLES COSTUME BONUS: Have your partner dress up as a half-destroyed skyscraper that got in your way.
- Miss Havisham. For you literary types, the ultimate bridal gown re-usage is emulating Dickens’ jilted bride who never took her dress off. Age makeup, a few cotton-batting cob webs, and a general air of despair complete this look. Make a piece of moldy cake out of styrofoam for the perfect accessory!
If your dress is too precious to expose to the wilds of a Halloween costume, you can still re-use some of your bridal accessories.
- Dye your veil black, put on your best LBD, let some mascara run down your face in faux tear tracks and go as a Sexy Widow. COUPLES COSTUME BONUS: Have your partner dress up as a ghost. It’s a Halloween classic!
- Disassemble your brooch boquet, arrange the pins all over a black turtleneck with handwritten price tags, and go as a Jewelry Case in a Vintage Shop.
- Garter as headband + Goodwill formal wear with wine stain + microphone with which to make a mortifying speech = Drunk Best Man/Maid of Honor. If you celebrate Halloween the way I do, you won’t have to do much acting to sell this costume.
Have a happy Halloween, folks! Do you have any more wedding ensemble costume ideas? Share in the comments!
I love that the bride featured here was able to use fabric from a previous costume for her chuppah, but the suggestion of the "Sexy Widow" is extremely tasteless, especially considering the military climate we're in these days.
Most costumes featured for Halloween are extremely tasteless. Please Google one of the recent articles complaining about generalizing, stereotyping and racism. Halloween IS tasteless. Mummies are real people! Indians aren't really "Indians" and they don't dress like that! Skeletons are mocking the dead! Witches are poking fun at a religious group!
I personally got the BEST chuckle out of "Sexy Widow". Nobody said anything about the military. In fact, if "Sexy Military Widow" was the idea of the costume, I would probably agree that it's tasteless. People become widowed for MANY different reasons, not just the military. While I see where you're coming from, I have to disagree with you.
I am a military wife and do not find it offensive. In fact, pin some cash to a black garter and you've got the "Sexy Gold-digger Widow"
http://www.texastreats.com/holiday-1/christmas-gi…
Great idea, really!