A heartbroken woman from Nottinghamshire, UK, burnt her wedding dress to heal from her traumatic divorce.
After a long time relationship of fourteen years, thirty-year-old Emma Lou divorced her husband in December 2018.
According to Daily Mail, the couple stayed married for four and a half years before calling it quits for multiple reasons – “all toxic,” per Emma.
“Our marriage really was quite toxic between us, we argued,” she explained. “I got diagnosed with fibromyalgia from being 23. It took a lot out of my life, my dream job and affected our relationship.”
“I was very depressed and stressed back then, but we got married even though I wasn’t well. In time our relationship got worse.”
The Nottinghamshire resident said that she thought her relationship would last forever, but after her marriage became extremely toxic, she had to end things for her wellbeing.
“In 2015 as I left him. It been a rollercoaster. I grieved the loss of our marriage but also grieved my hurts from it,” she told Media Drum World.
“I came to my spiritual path with this journey, finding crystals, doing reiki, and having counseling to help heal my past has some of my hurts didn’t just come from my husband but past to and childhood trauma from being adopted at birth and bullied at school.”
Lou said that it wasn’t her first preference to destroy her dress; however, when a friend shared that she was trashing her dress, she thought she should also do it, rather differently.
“Down the road of my healing, I decided to give away my dress to a woman who was getting married but was dying, but they never even bothered to get back in touch with me,” Emma said.
“In time a friend was talking about trashing hers and I said I’d love to do that. I had the idea in my mind of trashing it with powder paint to bring back colour to what was dark.”
“I started modelling and a photographer got in touch with me about a shoot but I asked if we could do my idea.”
According to Emma, she met the photographer at Wallaton Park in Nottingham and took a lot of pictures before actually destroying it.
“It was an amazing feeling. I loved it so much that I felt like a celebrity. People thought I was getting married until I told them what I was doing. One woman said, ‘you go, girl.'”
“When coming to trashing it, we hid so we wouldn’t get in trouble. I threw paint everywhere, all around me. I even got a paint bomb.”
“After the day ended, I got home, and I had this amazing energy around me, and I felt so empowered. I’d recommend any woman or man to trash their outfit it’s like an ending of a cycle, bringing in new beginnings.”
However, only trashing her dress with paint wasn’t enough for Emma, so she went one step further and put it on fire.
“After doing it, I still had the dress and thought I can’t just throw it away,” she said.
“April Easter Sunday I asked my friend if she was free. She had a fire pit and she said to come round. So I took my dress and wore black, no idea why, and thought time to let my past go a witchy way.”
“We let go by setting things on fire. I thought well it’s definitely me. As it burned, the flames got higher and looked like dragons coming out of the flames. It was a great experience and I felt a shift of energy.”
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Source: Daily Mail – Images & Featured Images Credits: mediadrum/EmmaLou
I did the same with my wedding dress before I left my husband of 20 years .