Frozen Wedding Dresses Build on Internet Trend at The Wedding Shoppe in Berkley
(Crystal A. Proxmire, Feb. 13, 2021)
Berkley, MI – “I bet that would be fun.” or “I should try that.”
Those are the words typed by thousands of people on social media in response to photos showing frozen jeans held upright by the ice, serving as wintertime art installations.
But unlike most of those people, the women at The Wedding Shoppe in Downtown Berkley actually got out their buckets and gave it a try.
Except they didn’t stick with the typical blues. They froze three wedding dresses which now seem to float in their places along the side of Coolidge Hwy.
Shawn Vilk saw the idea and brought it up to the owner of The Wedding Shoppe Michelle McFarland. For 21 years The Wedding Shoppe has been sharing love and beauty with their dresses, jewelry, and other accessories for brides and bridesmaids. They’ve been in their current location for 3 1/2 years, and are already a destination spot for the beautiful floral mural added to the side of their shop in 2019 as part of the Downtown Berkley Mural program.
“Brides and bridesmaids come all the time to take selfies and videos there. Brides stop by on their wedding day,” McFarland told Oakland County Times. “One woman came with her white convertible and took the best picture.”
Now people are starting to do that with the three frozen wedding dresses in front of the shop they put up Friday.
“We like doing things that make people smile,” she said. “We’re in the business of making people happy.”
This bit of happiness took several tries to get right, giving the ladies plenty to giggle about as they went through the trials and errors. “It was fun trying to figure it out.”
Eventually the solution was to disassemble a mannequin and reassemble it in a way that made it easy to take apart later. The mannequin held up a dress while the women dumped buckets of water on it, and when it was strong enough to stand on it’s own, the mannequin was removed, leaving only a a base to add some stability and weight in the bottom. The tops of the dress and the long skirts will soften and crumple when the temperature tops 32 degrees.
She hopes the dresses will remain frozen in place for a while, but “it depends on the weather,” McFarland said.
“We’re already thinking of what to do next year. We hope to make this a tradition.”
The Wedding Shoppe is located at 2186 Cooldige Hwy, north of 11 Mile Road. The boutique is open by appointment only. Learn more at www.TheWeddingShoppe.net.