Wedding Dress Torture Leads to Book Deal for Husband

Oct. 20, 2011 — -- When Kevin Cotter's wife of 12 years moved out in 2009, he encouraged her to take her wedding dress, but she didn't want it.

He said the gown sat in the closet in their Tucson, Ariz., home -- their divorce was finalized last year -- until his family suggested jokingly that he come up with 101 different things to do with it.

"It started out as just a list that we never had a plan to put in motion," he told ABC News Wednesday.

Eventually, though, that list sparked a blog -- "My Ex-Wife's Wedding Dress" -- in which Cotter posted photographs of the dress being used in various ways -- as a jump-rope, a dog toy, a grill cover, dental floss.

Click Here to see images from Kevin Cotter's blog project on 101 uses for his ex-wife's wedding dress.

Now the blog's popularity has launched a book titled "101 Uses for My Ex-Wife's Wedding Dress," which goes on sale next week.

Cotter said he had no idea that the blog would be so successful. "It's quite a shock," he said.

He said that while the blog covered the early days of his moving on from his divorce, the book told the rest of the story.

"It brings everyone up to speed in where I'm at today," Cotter said. "It's a combination of my story of getting over my ex-wife, all the adventures of her wedding dress, and it includes a lot of the applications that were on my website."

He said the book also included 40 uses of the wedding dress that were not shared on his blog.

"There's quite a a bit of new material on there," he said.

As for the gown, Cotter said that although it was in "bad shape," he would sell it to raise money for charity if the book's success had people clamoring for it.

"The dress has retired," he said. "We're done. It hasn't been used in any way in some time."

Cotter said writing the book was cathartic and brought him closer to his brother, who helped him create many uses for the dress, which at times came from commenters on his blog.

The time Cotter spent commiting his feelings about his divorce to paper required him "to reflect on all of these emotions," he told ABC News. "It helped me heal a lot. I have moved on. That's the end of the story."