Original Homemade Headless Bride Halloween Costume

Using some of the ideas from the ‘Coolest Homemade Costumes’ website, I created this homemade headless bride Halloween costume.

The body is made from half of a plastic mannequin with holes drilled for the arms. I used support stockings for the arms, which I half-stuffed. I took two dowels and affixed them to the body with wire and filled the form with 2x expansion spray foam insulation. After it set, I put a piece of quilt batting over the insulation to smooth it out before duct-taping the form.

I then paper mache’d over the duct tape so I would be able to paint the body. I used the cap from a can of window cleaner for the spine and tacked it to the body with grout, which I also spread around the neck to make it look a little more gruesome. I painted the body a flesh tone and used a blue-gray wash over that to mimic dead flesh. I put the dowels in two one-liter bottles, placed them in a backpack and taped them securely so there would be no play. It was very lightweight and maneuverable; the form sat above my head, and my hands were free.

For the dress, I added on about two feet of material around the hem to lengthen it, cut a hole in the waist for my head to come out (a T-shape works best) and made sleeves since it was a short-sleeved dress. I put a couple of coat hangers in the arms in order to bend them and finished stuffing them to the ‘wrist’. I stuffed the fingers and hands of the opera gloves, and pulled the gloves over the arms. I bent the arms at the elbows and placed a ring on her finger before I tacked the hands in place. I added fake blood, a tiara, a veil, some deathly makeup and voila! A headless bride.