A toilet-paper wedding dress? It’s not just a bridal shower game

Published 5:00 am Sunday, July 17, 2011

DETROIT — Chiffon. Satin. Toilet paper?

Susan Brennan has added four jumbo rolls of two-ply Charmin to her list of acceptable wedding dress materials.

The West Bloomfield, Mich., woman won the $1,000 top prize in a recent national contest by making a wedding dress from toilet paper, packing tape and glue. The dress took Brennan about a week to finish.

The dress features flowers along the bottom and a pleated bodice. Toilet paper feathers help accent the dress, along with a bracelet. And there’s even a hairpiece.

“I did techniques you could do with fabric. But instead of stitching them, I used tape and glue, a lot of tape and glue,” said Brennan, 25. She called it a “modern, fun, little dress.” She noted that, in the event something were to be spilled on the dress — perhaps a flute of champagne? — “it’s pretty absorbent.”

Susan Bain, co-owner of Boca Raton, Fla.-based www.cheap-chic-weddings.com, said the dress stood out among about 800 entries in the website’s seventh-annual toilet-paper wedding dress contest.

“She used a lot of elements in modern bridal dresses,” Bain said. “She made elements of it that looked like couture dresses.”

The dress likely won’t be returned to Brennan. Bain said Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a sponsor, may take the dress as it has for past contest winners to display in a Ripley’s museum. The idea for the contest is based on a similar event held at many bridal showers, Bain said.

The wedding dress isn’t Brennan’s first foray into creative clothing design — she once made a dress out of potato chip bags.

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