Help NICU Babies with Your Wedding Dress

In just a couple of months, my husband and I will be celebrating our 10^th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been ten years as I can still recall our wedding day perfectly. Aside from the pictures and our personal memories from that day, the only thing we have left from our wedding is my wedding dress. 

While I love my wedding dress, I have been ready to part with it for a while. Originally, I was saving it in case we had a daughter and she wanted to use it for her wedding. However, after having our two boys, my husband and I have decided that our family is complete so there is really no need for me to continue saving the dress.

I’m not really a sentimental person and don’t see a need to continue to store it, especially since we have an assortment of wedding pictures to look back at. At one point I tried to sell it. There wasn’t any interest then, so I’ve just been holding on to it..

Perhaps, you or someone you know is in the same situation. While they love their wedding dress, they don’t want to continue storing it any longer when it could be used elsewhere? While I have been at a loss for ideas of what to do with my dress for a couple years now, the other night I was on Facebook and saw an article about the NICU Helping Hands organization.

This organization was started to create a support system for families who are going through pain of having a newborn hospitalized in the NICU. Here families can find the support and educational tools they need to help them through this difficult time.

While the technology today is amazing and many babies in the NICU do grow strong enough to go home and live a long life, there are still those who don’t ever get to go home with their loving families. It’s these babies and their families that you can I can help with our wedding gowns.

In the past, the babies that passed away in the NICU were wrapped in a thin hospital blanket before being given to their families for burial. What the volunteers behind NICU Helping Hands are doing now is taking donated wedding dresses and turning them into beautiful “angel gowns” for these precious babies to wear for their final photos and burial services. By the way, the angel gowns are given to the families free of charge.

I cannot imagine the pain (and hope that I never have to) that comes with losing a child, and while I know nothing can take away this pain, I feel like this is a way for me to help. NICU Helping Hands has stated that they can make up to a dozen angel gowns out of one dress and they will send keepsake pieces back to the owner of the donated wedding dress, if desired. Additionally, they will also send a receipt for the donation back to the owner so you can deduct the donation on your taxes as well.

If you are like me and think that this sounds like a great thing to do with your wedding dress, you can find all the information you need regarding the donation process here.