A Texas woman decided to creatively end her 14-year-marriage with a divorce party that ended with a huge explosion of her wedding dress that was felt for miles.
On Saturday night, 43-year-old Kimberly Santleben-Stiteler celebrated her divorce from Henry Jordan Stiteler with her family members and close friends by filling her wedding dress with 20 pounds of tannerite ($200 worth), an explosive target material used for firearms training, on the family's farm in LaCoste, 25 miles west of San Antonio, KSAT reported Sunday. Santeben-Stiteler then shot at the dress with a rifle from around 200 yards away, blowing up her wedding dress on her very first shot.
"I wanted to remove all things from our marriage from our house," Santleben-Stiteler told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sunday. "Photos in the attic, ring in the safe (but probably going to sell it), and the dress I wanted to burn."
"I had a lot of advice and suggestions from friends and family, like donating it for premature babies and baptism gowns. However, to me, the dress represented a lie. I wanted to have a divorce party to burn the dress," she added.
"We've had several people wondering what happened. The divorce wasn't that bad, it was just a celebration!" Santleben-Stiteler's sister, Carla Santleben-Newport.