Richter: Our mother's dress?
Margarete: I kept it, hoping my lady would wear it to her own wedding. I beg you, heed my final request.
Margarete: I kept it, hoping my lady would wear it to her own wedding. I beg you, heed my final request.
— Daimos
Family trinkets are a diverse bunch, huh?
Lockets, rings, crowns, keys, jewellery and many other items are passed down from one generation to another, either for sentimental value or for prestige.
Weddings are considered a significant event in one's life, and wedding dresses are considered Serious Business. You could have one tailored for you, or you could keep it in the family and wear one that once belonged to your own mother. Oftentimes, this will be done as a way for a mother to show that she gives her blessing to the marriage, or as a way to honour the mother if she is deceased.
They could either be tattered from years of neglect, simple and old-fashioned due to their time period, or a Fairytale Wedding Dress. In some cases, the dress may need to be modified/reworked to fit the wearer.
In some cases, brides may receive this from their future mothers-in-law, fitting the spirit of this trope.
May be considered the "Old" or "Borrowed" in Old, New, Borrowed and Blue.
See also Heirloom Engagement Ring, a similar trope for rings. Could overlap with Ethereal White Dress, Fairytale Wedding Dress, Pimped-Out Dress, Simple, yet Opulent, and Tragic Keepsake. Let's hope it doesn't overlap with Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress.
This can also be expanded to include components of wedding dresses, such as just wearing a veil or a train from a parent's dress.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Used as an elaborate plot point in Daimos. Margarete was the maidservant of the Baam-seijin Royal Family, and upon the birth of their children, became their caretaker and governess. Of the two, she was especially close to Princess Erika, whom she viewed as a surrogate daughter. When the Queen died, Margarete secretly held on to her wedding dress so that Erika would one day wear it to her own wedding. When Richter has Erika sentenced to execution for falling in love with a human, and Margarete as well for abetting her, Margarete makes a last request — she has always wanted to see Erika get married and wants her to spend her last moments in the very dress. To her surprise, Richter grants it. When Margarete is helping Erika put it on, she suddenly "poisons"note the disgraced Princess, shocking everyone. Margarete proclaims that she poisoned Erika because she "couldn't bear to see her executed like a common criminal", while secretly hoping that by then Erika has fled to Earth.
- The last few episodes of the Dragon Ball anime are about Goku and Chi-Chi preparing for their wedding. The wedding dress that Chi-Chi wears for the ceremony has been passed down for generations, with it last being worn when her father, the Ox-King, and her mother got married.
- The Non-Serial Movie for Doki Doki! PreCure has Mana's mother pass down her wedding dress to her for whenever she decides to marry early on in the film. The dress almost getting stolen by Marsh is what tips Mana off to the villain's plan (due to him believing it to be discarded like many other trinkets he collected beforehand), and Future Mana is seen wearing it when Cure Heart travels through time to stop the true Big Bad.
- Lady!!: In Chapter 17 of the manga, while Lynn is staying with her maternal grandparents, they give her Misuzu's Fairytale Wedding Dress. Lynn tries it on and is amazed at how pretty it is. Misuzu's mother explains that they never accepted their daughter's marriage to George, and they regret it to this very day, so the two got married in a small church where they were the only attendees. The dress is a Tragic Keepsake since Misuzu is now deceased.
- Protagonist Momoko Hanasaki in Wedding Peach dreams of the day she'll get married wearing her deceased Mom's wedding dress despite not even dating anyone at the start of the show. She even occasionally dresses up in it whilst doing her daydreaming. She also inherited her mother's wedding ring, but wears it all the time.
Comic Strips
- For Better or for Worse: During the planning of Elizabeth's wedding to Anthony, Liz's sister-in-law Deanna just happened to find her late grandmother Marian's wedding dress in a crawlspace in the house Mike inherited from his parents. Naturally the Pattersons insisted she should wear it, having Deanna talk her into it without giving Liz any time to consider whether she wanted to get her own dress instead. At least they had it cleaned first. Deanna altered it to the point where it looked like a different dress entirely, resulting in a fan theory that the dress realistically fell apart after years of being shoved in a cardboard box in a moldy crawlspace and Elizabeth and Deanna secretly bought a dress and passed it off as her grandmother's.
Films — Animated
- In Brother Bear 2, Nita wears the wedding dress of her deceased mother during her intended wedding, whom she and her father held great respect in their hearts.
- In Corpse Bride, during "Remains of the Day", it's stated that Emily's wedding dress belonged to her mother.
Films — Live-Action
- 27 Dresses: Jane, the protagonist, snaps after her sister Tess cuts up their deceased mother's wedding dress (that Jane had been planning on wearing when she eventually got married) to make it more "modern" for her own wedding. It makes her reach a Rage Breaking Point and give Tess a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- In Bride Wars, Emma wears her mother's wedding dress when she walks down the aisle for sentimental and financial reasons (contrasting her with her friend/rival Liv, who has more money and chooses to wear a brand new Vera Wang wedding gownnote ). Emma's wedding ultimately doesn't place though, as she and her fiance break up at the altar.
- Gone with the Wind: Taking the novel's detail of Scarlett marrying Charles Hamilton in haste and in her mother's wedding dress, costume designer Walter Plunkett went the extra mile by designing a gown twenty years older than the story's 1861 setting, made it to fit Barbara O'Neil (who plays Scarlett's mother Ellen) then altered it to fit Vivien Leigh.
- The Proposal: Downplayed and justified. After convincing Andrew and Margaret to have their wedding last minute so that Andrew's family can witness it, Grandma Annie passes her wedding dress, made by hand by her own mother, on to her granddaughter-in-law Margaret. Margaret, who was orphaned young and has no other family, is touched at being treated like family in this way, especially since she originally only proposed to Andrew so she would not be deported to Canada.
- Sleepless in Seattle After Annie announces her engagement, her mother takes her to the attic so that she can try on her grandmother's wedding dress. It's ill-fitting and out of style.
- In Some Like It Hot, Osgood tells 'Daphne' at the end that his mother was so thrilled to hear that her boy was so engaged that she offered up her wedding dress.
Jerry/Daphne: I can't get married in your mother's dress, ha ha. That– she and I, we are not built the same way.
Osgood: We can have it altered.
Literature
- American Girl's short story book "Samantha Saves the Wedding" has Samantha mention her late mother's wedding veil as one she might wear someday; it's stored in the attic of her grandmother's house. When her Aunt Cornelia's veil is destroyed by her little sister Alice chopping it up, Samantha goes to get her mother's for Cornelia to use in her marriage to Sam's Uncle Gard. (This subplot is also carried into the movie, though with different circumstances on the original veil's destruction—it catches fire on a curling iron flame.)
- A subplot in Meg Cabot's The Boy Next Door is that Melissa's best friend Nadine is getting married soon, and is trying to slim down from size 16 to 12 so she can fit into her mother's wedding dress, as did all her sisters in what's become a family tradition. Her fiancé thinks this is nuts, as the dieting makes her miserable, he loves her body as it is and thinks the dress is hideous anyway. By the end of the book, she agrees with him and plans to buy a dress she likes.
- In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Fleur Delacour marries into the Weasley family, she wears an heirloom tiara, goblin-made, which complements her own stunning beauty. Nor did Molly Weasley, her mother-in-law, offer the tiara lightly; it comes up in an emotional moment during Half-Blood Prince.
- Les Misérables: When Marius and Cosette are married, Cosette wears a gown that belonged to Marius's great-great grandmother.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: A variation. Wedding ceremonies in Westeros involve the bride wearing a maiden cloak decorated with the sigil of her father's house and the groom replacing it with a bride cloak decorated with the sigil of his house. This is meant to represent how the bride is now under her husband's protection rather than her father's. It is not unusual for families to use the same cloak in multiple weddings. Joffrey marries Margaery using the bride cloak that his grandfather gave his grandmother. After Joffrey dies and Margaery remarries his younger brother, Tommen uses the bride cloak that his presumed father gave his mother at the suggestion of Margaery's grandmother. Cersei is resentful that Tommen didn't use her parents' cloak as Joffrey had, but she doesn't press the issue because that would lend credence to the rumors about her children's parentage.
- A variant in one of the Ramona Quimby books: when Dorothy, Ramona's mother is asked to be matron of honor, she happily accepts. The only hitch is, Dorothy is expecting and rather far along. Fortunately, there's a maternity dress suitable for a matron of honor, passed around by ladies of the neighborhood (and presumably easy to take in or let out), and Dorothy wears that.
Live-Action TV
- Castle (2009): Justified in "For Better or Worse". Beckett's original wedding dress is ruined by a pipe bursting in her apartment, so they dig up her late mother's wedding dress as a short-notice replacement. Unfortunately, the wedding never happens, courtesy of Castle vanishing on the way to the ceremony with his car found wrecked.
- General Hospital: When Lois couldn't find a suitable wedding dress, her husband's (they had eloped a year prior but were now planning a formal ceremony to renew their vows and ensure that both of their families could attend) grandmother offered her hers as a "welcome to the family" gesture, resulting in Lois wearing a gorgeous 1940's style gown.
- Discussed in the Series Finale of The Golden Girls. Sophia expresses mild disappointment about Dorothy not using her wedding dress on her wedding day (keep in mind that the former is 4'11" and petite while the latter is 5'9" and of average build). To this, Dorothy replies, "As what, Ma, a hand puppet?"
- In the M*A*S*H episode "Margaret's Marriage", Klinger gifts a beautiful wedding dress to Margaret for her wedding. He explains that he inherited the dress from his uncle who had used it to get out of service in World War II. Since Klinger doesn't have a daughter to pass the dress to, he says he would be honored if Margaret wore it instead.
- In Melrose Place, both Jane and Sydney wear their grandmother's wedding dress on their wedding day to Jane's husband Michael. When the former catches the latter in the dress, it results in a fight that culminates in both of them falling into the apartment complex's pool.
- Gilmore Girls: Mrs. Kim goes behind Lane's back to give her own wedding dress to Lorelai for alterations for Lane's wedding, having decided it's what Lane is going to wear. After opening the garment bag and seeing how unsuited it is, Lorelai caves to Lane's request to "accidentally" destroy it, using the same material but essentially creating a new dress out of it, satisfying both women's desires.
- Grimm: Monroe and Rosalee get engaged in season 3, with Rosalee planning to wear her grandmother's dress. However, the night before the wedding, her sister DeEtta gets drunk and ruins the dress, insisting that she's doing Rosalee a favour because she wore that dress to both her weddings, and both marriages "ended up in the crapper." Another dress is bought last-minute, and Monroe assures a hungover and shamefaced DeEtta that "we hated that dress anyway," (it was hideous). Presumably, Rosalee only wore it to placate her family.
- Played for Laughs in Only Murders in the Building. After Charles accidentally proposes to Joy and then breaks up with her, Joy got her mother and grandmother's wedding dress sent to Charles's apartment in the interim. As a result, it's still there when Mabel, Charles, and Oliver use it to storm Loretta's indictment for Ben's murder. Mabel and Oliver express shock that Joy's parents are both still alive, as, apparently, is her childhood dog.
- Petticoat Junction: This is a central plot point of the episode "With This Gown I Thee Wed," where Betty Jo and Steve get married. Betty Jo buys a wedding dress for herself, but feels torn when Uncle Joe and Cousin Mae both buy wedding dresses for her, and she doesn't want to disappoint either one of them, even though both of their dresses look silly. None of them know that Betty Jo's mother Kate has secretly been saving her own wedding dress to give it to the first of her daughters to get married; when she sees that Betty Jo already bought a dress, she hides both the old gown and her disappointment. But in the end, Billie Jo tells her sister the secret, so Betty Jo solves her dilemma by wearing her mother's wedding dress after all.
- Say Yes to the Dress: Comes up fairly often, especially in cases where a bride's mother has passed away and thus won't be at the wedding.
- Some brides will decide to wear a new dress but, to honor their mothers (or sometimes future mothers-in-law), will wear some other piece of their wedding ensemble—the veil, shoes, jewelry, or something. This then adds an extra complication to the dress shopping, as they now have to find a dress to fit the accessories, rather than the other way around.
Music
- Mary Chapin Carpenter: The first verse of "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" describes the viewpoint character's wedding as follows: "When she was twenty-one, she wore her mother's lace / She said 'Forever' with a smile upon her face"
Video Games
- Yes, Your Grace deconstructs the idea. The cheapest option for Lorsulia's wedding dress is to get her mother Aurelea's wedding dress out of storage. Since the storage conditions weren't exactly optimal, the dress is no longer white and smells.
Webcomics
- Played for Laughs in Sabrina Online. While preparing for her wedding with RC, Sabrina is gifted her mother’s wedding dress and she tries it on at Zig Zag’s studio. The dress ends up being so ugly that Zig Zag immediately offers to bring Sabrina dress shopping
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Western Animation
- Played for Laughs in the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Dress". Richard does the family's laundry against Nicole's wishes, which causes Gumball's clothes to shrink. Refusing to go to school naked, Gumball wears Nicole's wedding dress to school instead.
- Ninjago: When Nadakahn's crew is helping put together his forced wedding to Nya, they put her in Nadakahn's mother's wedding dress. Since djinn have four arms, they wind up altering it to remove the extra sleeves, but otherwise it fits her surprisingly well.
- In Zootopia+, Fru Fru gets into a fight with her cousin because she believes she is acting like a bridesmaidzilla because she taking over the wedding arrangements. However, she learns that her cousin was only trying to make the perfect wedding that Fru Fru always dreamt of as a kid. This includes getting the wedding dress Fru Fru's mom wore.
Real Life
- This dress has been worn by eleven different brides in one family, lightly modified for each bride; the dress was first made in 1895.
