The Brooklyn Paper / Julie Rosenberg

What’s in the box? Brooklyn Heights resident Elisa Zuritsky wants to give away her unused wedding dress (below) — and therein lies a great story.

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Something old, something new, something borrowed, something really expensive won in a bizarre, only-in-New York wedding dress contest!

A Brooklyn Heights woman whose Big Day last year was almost ruined after her bridal shop went out of business on the eve of her wedding now wants to give away the lush silk gown that she’d ordered but never wore.

The $3,000 Mariana Hardwick-designed gown did show up about three days before the nuptials, but by then, bride Elisa Zuritsky had already given up and purchased a “back-up dress.” Her fancy gown — still in its box — was simply tossed into her fiance’s closet.

Now, Zuritsky wants closure.

“I’ll admit it, I was angry at the dress,” said Zuritsky, a former writer for “Sex & the City.” “But it’s a beautiful gown and I went to a lot of trouble to get it. Someone should have it. It deserves to have a life.”

Hence, the essay contest, which Zuritsky has posted at www.takemydress.com.

But before would-be brides pick up their poison pens, Zuritsky is not necessarily looking for weepiest wedding story.

After all, hers could win her own contest.

“I know it’s a cliche, but the dress really is important,” she said. “I wanted one that made me feel right, like I was wearing something elegant, not a costume.”

The dress, she said, made her feel “teeny-tiny [and] I’m not.”

For weeks, the woman who owned the shop in the East Village told Zuritsky that the dress would be delivered “next week.”

But “next week” never came — until the wedding was this week.

When the East Ninth Street store finally closed, Zuritsky bit the bullet and went with her future mother-in-law to Kleinfeld’s, the former Bay Ridge wedding emporium, to buy the back-up gown.

“It captured the spirit of the original,” she said.

But there was still that monster in the box to deal with.

“I had the best time at my wedding, so I should be able to open the damn box, and finally face The Dress,” Zuritsky wrote on her Web site. “But I just can’t.”

So, ladies, grab your pens.

Entries are due on Memorial Day and a winner will be announced on June 22 (too late for a June wedding, but this is a free dress we’re talking about).

Zuritsky will even send the dress, postage paid. The only thing she is asking in return is a picture of the winner wearing the dress at her wedding.

Zuritsky has already received 10 entries since her site went live two weeks ago — and one wedding expert isn’t surprised.

“It’s a very exciting, novel idea,” said Eric V. Copage, a former writer on the New York Times wedding page.

“But for me, the most exciting thing will be to see which essay she picks as the winner. That will reveal even more about her than about the essay writer.”

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper