Party Dress Day will be returning for 2025! You are invited to don your party best to feel good and raise funds for The Good Grief Trust on Friday 31 January. Everyone is welcome so encourage your colleagues, classmates, family and friends to join in.

What is Party Dress Day?

Our first event took place in the Covid pandemic UK lockdown on Saturday 6 February 2021 and was organised in just a week! The inspiration was the pandemic and everything we had missed in the previous year, from gathering with loved ones to simply dressing up for a party - and the thousands of families who had lost someone irreplaceable to Covid.

We invited anyone who was interested to put on a favourite party outfit to feel fabulous and look forward to good times ahead. Participants were encouraged to share a picture of their party wear using the #partydressday hashtag and make a donation. The response was overwhelming and uplifting - and we raised £1,710 for The Good Grief Trust. It was a special day and lovely to feel part of a celebration despite being forced to be apart.

In fact, it was so much fun, we did it all over again on Saturday 3 April to celebrate Easter weekend. This time our story made it everywhere from BBC Radio York and BBC Look North to Desert Island Disco on Lauren Laverne's Radio 6 show! We also appeared in the Sunday People and Red magazine. Best of all, it took our fundraising total to £2,800.

Party Dress Day is now an annual event on the last Friday of January - the perfect way to shake off the January blues while helping others. Our 2022 event raised just over £3,000, we collected a further £2,300 in 2023 and another £2000 in 2024.

This means that by dressing up, we’ve raised more than £10,000 in total to support The Good Grief Trust and its services, such as Hope and Help condolence cards for NHS trusts and GPs to direct the bereaved to services.

So get out that frock, snazzy shirt or your favourite pair of shoes, wear it on Friday 31 January, whether you are walking the dog or in the office, and make a donation.

Don't forget to post your pictures on social media and use the hashtag #partydressday so we can share them on the @partydressday Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds.

We’ve also got an official Party Dress Day playlist on Spotify to get your party started:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/47vLwABN4fmPt68SFvp22v?si=crBRuffnSh-jarDGgSeH8Q

Dressing up might seem frivolous but this small action has the power to lift your mood and feel part of a caring community.

Best of all, your donations go to help those who are bereaved feel that they are not alone.

The Good Grief Trust is an inspiring organisation that brings together grief services under one umbrella. It aims to raise awareness of issues around bereavement and try to change the way we deal with this taboo subject in the UK, ensure acknowledgement of the potentially severe effects of grief and encourage us all to talk it about it more openly.