Precious Gowns

Made of wedding dresses and formals in ivories and pale pastel colors, they’re cut from the smallest patterns and trimmed with lace. They are made for both boys and girls. These precious gowns serve as burial garments for infants who are stillborn, or too small or ill to survive.

Several wonderful organizations receive these wedding dresses and formals and sew them into small gowns for grieving families. Two of these organizations are NICU Helping Hands, based in Texas, and Ashley’s Angels. Information can be found online for these groups and others like them, and one dress usually makes 24 gowns. Both of these organizations have excellent information and guidelines on their websites.

For families facing such a great loss it is a blessing to be able to choose the gown for their child themselves. These parents share that this is an area of concern for them as they prepare for the burial, and selecting a beautiful garment for their infant eases some of the stress and helps them to fulfill an act of love for the child they have lost.

These tiny babies truly deserve this act of love. Matthew 19 reminds us of how Jesus feels about these little ones in the second part of verse 14:”for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” If you have a wedding dress or a formal gown in your closet that you wish to share, you will be reaching out to a family you will likely never meet, but you will be a blessing to them at the greatest time of loss.