Woman burns wedding dress at ‘divorce garage sale’

HOUSTON (KPRC/CNN) – A Texas woman wants a clean slate after having a bad marriage.

Brianna Barksdale held a “divorce garage sale” to get rid of all the bad memories, but the biggest memory of her marriage literally went up in flames.

She burned her wedding dress.

“This is for every woman who has ever been in a relationship that was abusive, that hurt, that they shouldn’t have stayed in, that they didn’t know how to get out of,” Barksdale said.

Barksdale’s divorce was finalized Jan. 31, but Friday’s s ale was mostly about closure, picking up, and starting over.

“It was a really rough situation, it was a bad situation – there’s still criminal charges pending so I can’t talk about a lot of it, but yeah, not a great guy,” Barksdale said.

Barksdale said her ex-husband cheated on her and was violent. Court records show her ex-husband is serving seven years of probation and community service after pleading guilty to assault of a family member.

She decided to have a garage sale, a divorce party of sorts, to sell all the bad memories away, including some of her ex-husband’s possessions, which she was awarded in the divorce.

“I ended up with pretty much everything and so I’m just getting rid of all of the stuff that was ours and going on with mine,” Barksdale said.

Before burning her wedding dress, people signed it or write messages on the dress. Some using more colorful language than the sharpies the messages were written with.

“I think it’s a good release for her and I think that she needs it to get over everything that’s she been through,” said Christina Heck, a yard sale customer.

All the proceeds from today will go right back to Barksdale.

KPRC in Houston reached out to Barksdale’s ex-husband for comment, but he declined.