--- title: Texas Woman Blows Up Wedding Dress For Divorce: Video description: A Texas woman celebrated her divorce after a 14-year marriage by blowing up her wedding dress with an audience of friends and family. canonical: https://time.com/5455822/blowing-up-wedding-dress/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-15T17:10:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:56:03.093Z og:title: Texas Woman Celebrates Divorce by Blowing Up Wedding Dress og:description: As one does og:url: https://time.com/5455822/blowing-up-wedding-dress/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd86c64e244b9a139/69893f3d656a3f1501bd5ff1/woman-blows-up-wedding-dress-to-celebrate-divorce.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Yellow color burning fire frame og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Texas Woman Celebrates Divorce by Blowing Up Wedding Dress twitter:description: As one does twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd86c64e244b9a139/69893f3d656a3f1501bd5ff1/woman-blows-up-wedding-dress-to-celebrate-divorce.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Texas Woman Celebrates Her Divorce By Blowing Up Her Wedding Dress  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Nov 15, 2018 5:10 PM UTC  Yellow color burning fire frame Yellow color burning fire framesbayram—Getty Images/iStockphoto  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Nov 15, 2018 5:10 PM UTC A Texas divorcée showed that she knew how to go out of a marriage with a bang when she celebrated her [divorce being finalized](http://time.com/5405757/millennials-us-divorce-rate-decline/) by blowing up [her wedding dress.](http://time.com/4803546/woman-burns-wedding-dress/) According to the [_Star-Telegram_](https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article221527670.html), Kimberly Santleben-Stiteler of LaCoste, Texas, commemorated the end of her 14-year marriage by filling her wedding dress with $200 worth of explosives and then shooting it with a rifle on her father’s farm. Forty of her closest family and friends were on deck to help her celebrate this momentous occasion. “I wanted to remove all things from our marriage from our house,” Santleben-Stiteler said. “Photos in the attic, ring in the safe (but probably going to sell it) and the dress I wanted to burn.” She decided to up the ante by making her dress explode with the help of her father and brother-in-law, as well as a friend who was a bomb technician. The explosion ended up being so vast that it was felt and heard in their county, up to 15 miles away. “The explosion was huge,” she said. “It was liberating pulling that trigger. It was closure for all of us.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5455822/blowing-up-wedding-dress/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5455822/blowing-up-wedding-dress/"},"headline":"Texas Woman Celebrates Her Divorce By Blowing Up Her Wedding Dress","datePublished":"2018-11-15T17:10:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:56:03.093Z","description":"As one does","url":"https://time.com/5455822/blowing-up-wedding-dress/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd86c64e244b9a139/69893f3d656a3f1501bd5ff1/woman-blows-up-wedding-dress-to-celebrate-divorce.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd86c64e244b9a139/69893f3d656a3f1501bd5ff1/woman-blows-up-wedding-dress-to-celebrate-divorce.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Yellow color burning fire frame","caption":"Yellow color burning fire frame","creditText":"sbayram—Getty Images/iStockphoto","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5455822/blowing-up-wedding-dress/","name":"Texas Woman Celebrates Her Divorce By Blowing Up Her Wedding Dress"}}]}] ```