Here comes the bride, all dressed in plastic

The average cost of a wedding dress is around $1100 or more. Pretty steep for a dress that one will only wear once.

So one bride in the UK decided to trim the costs by turning to an unlikely source: plastic cups.

RPC Tedeco-Gizeh Kenfig, a manufacturer of rigid plastic packaging, created a dress for Tracey Leahy, managing director of Mannvend, a member of the Associated Vending Association—the UK's largest independent vending purchasing group. The association has a five-year contract with Kenfig to supply plastic cups.

David Lowe, general manager at Kenfig, says the idea came about during a conversation at the association conference.

"Tracey mentioned that she was getting married and threw me a challenge of making her a wedding dress from plastic cups," Lowe said. "Of course the creative team at Kenfig embraced the idea and got to work on the design."

"We agreed that if the dress could be produced then Tracey would wear it for part of her wedding day in August. We are absolutely delighted with the result and for Tracey to wear the dress on her special day, really is testament to her love of the vending industry."

RPC is touting that using the plastic cups for a wedding dress is an "innovative" recycling concept.

What did the bride think of the final product?

"I'm thrilled that RPC Tedeco-Gizeh rose to the challenge and have produced such a stylish dress," Leahy said. "It just shows how versatile plastic cups can be and how RPC will go that extra mile to keep the customer happy."

While there are many questions about the design element of this dress, probably the biggest one I have is, was this dress even comfortable to wear?

Whether plastic cup wedding dresses start making the pages of bridal magazines is yet to be seen. Also, I wonder if Leahy will keep the dress or give it to another bride to reuse?