“Something borrowed” is getting a stylish new twist.
The latest trend in bridal fashion is a wife-to-be taking her mother’s vintage wedding dress and restyling to her own taste — perhaps hacking off the puffy ’80s sleeves — to wear on the big day or the events leading up to it.
“When I got engaged, one of the first things I did was ask my mom for her dress,” newlywed Jaime Guillory, 27, told The Post. “I tried it on and decided that I wanted to [restyle it] and wear it for my wedding rehearsal dinner.”
On May 20, just before tying the knot to husband Preston in Laguna Beach, Calif., Guillory donned a frock that her mother, Donna MacDonald, wore when she got married in July 1989.
The lacy number had originally cost $400; Guillory paid a seamstress $200 to fashion it into a billowing midi ensemble with a fitted silk slip to wear the night before her wedding.
The dramatic “I do” redo went viral on TikTok, garnering more than 2.2 million views.
“Having the dress remade was such a fun and special once-in-a-lifetime project,” said Guillory, a real estate consultant who lives in Orange County, Calif. “And my mom was really happy that the dress could have a second life. And she was even more excited than I was.”
Here’s how other brides are redoing their moms’ dresses.
Ears to you, Mom
When Samantha Humbach asked her mother, Karen Verreault, for the OK to chop up her prized “princess” wedding gown from 1988 and transform it into a pair of earrings for her June 4 nuptials, she was worried the answer would be a hard, swift no. But, much to her surprise, Mom was more than happy to unbox her $1,000 frock for a haute overhaul.
“She was like, ‘Absolutely! I love that it’s going to get reused,’” Humbach, 32, an upcycling fashion designer from Fort Atkinson, Wis., told The Post.
She used the pearls and beading from the original to create a pair of dangling, shoulder-length earrings to accessorize her own $175 A-line, empire-waist dress.
Her creativity didn’t end there. Humbach also tapped a seamstress to transform the fabric of Verreault’s finery into a pair of bridal pajamas, a wedding day robe and a tutu for her pup, Oakley.
“My mom thought everything was absolutely adorable and so pretty,” said Humbach, regretting, however, that Verreault didn’t cry at the sight of her rebooted dress. But “she thought me and Oakley looked beautiful.”
Reworking Mama’s ward-robe
Rachel Gower’s eyes welled up with tears the instant she saw herself glowing in mom Nanette Gower’s wedding dress from 1977 on her own big day in September 2021. But she wasn’t wearing the piece as a gown — she’d converted it into her wedding day getting-ready robe.
“Me and my mom are best friends, and incorporating her dress into my wedding day was my way of honoring my parents and their 45-year marriage,” Gower, 22, from Milford, Pa., told The Post.
The beautician, who initially got the idea to recycle her mom’s ensemble from Pinterest, spent $130 to have it shortened to her mid-thigh and redesigned into a chic dressing gown she wore for pictures with friends as they did hair and makeup. Her favorite parts of the re-creation were the lace appliqués artfully placed on the robe’s sleeves and lapels.
“I’d been planning my wedding in my head since high school,” said Gower. “So seeing myself in my mom’s dress really made me feel like a grown woman. It was surreal.”
Out-fit for a queen
When Brittany Labbe exhumed mom Carolyn Labbe’s high-collared, embroidery-laced wedding dress from the garbage bag it’d been stored in since 1985, she was shocked to discover the once pearly white two-piece had turned completely yellow.
But that didn’t stop Labbe, 30, from nursing the $40 dress back to health and restyling it into a funky wedding skirt and jacket for her upcoming nuptials this summer. She also plans to sport the restyled splendor for her bridal shower.
The Labbe ladies “looked up a recipe for a whitening mixture on YouTube and soaked her dress in it for about 12 hours,” Brittany, from Starkville, Miss., told The Post.
The women used a blend of OxiClean, powered Tide, Calgon and Arm & Hammer’s Super Washing Soda to restore Carolyn’s dress to its milky glory. Then, with a few strips of elastic from Joann fabrics, the do-it-yourself mom and daughter made the bottom of the original dress into an on-trend high-waisted bridal midi-skirt. Rather than reimagining the frock’s old-fashioned neckline, the pair simply turned the top of the dress around and made it an open jacket.
“My parents have an amazing marriage,” said Labbe. “So I really wanted to repurpose her dress as a symbol of true love for my big day.”
