4th Woman in Family to Wear Same Wedding Dress
Erica Peterson wore her mother's gown from 1981 and enlisted the help of a talented seamstress friend to update the dress.
Peterson said in an email to Insider: "The dress was never really preserved – maybe cleaned once – and I didn't even know my mom still had it until I got engaged. I was eager to try it on but didn't think I would actually wear it, I totally lacked the vision to see beyond the high neckline and puffy, lacy sleeves! But then I did start to think more about it, and came up with some sketches to how I thought it could be modified."
The dress was altered by a friend and talented seamstress, Lisa Mensonides, who dropped the neckline, made the sleeves fitted, and lowered the opening of the back.
"Because my mom has a longer torso than I do, Lisa also completely removed the skirt from the bodice to shorten the length and reattach. All lace on the dress is original, which means she painstakingly removed and repositioned quite a bit of it to accommodate the new design," Peterson said.
Dawn Markley had dreamed of wearing mom Linda Fitzpatrick's dress to her own wedding since she was a little girl.
"My mom was 30 when she married my dad in 1987. I was 30 when I wore her dress in 2018," Markley told Insider.
She continued: "She had her dress preserved and kept it as we moved all over the world because my parents were in the navy. I always wanted to wear it since I was a little girl — I went and tried on dresses but loved it so much. It fit me perfectly, I just had it altered a bit to make it 'mine.' Getting to wear her dress was my favorite part of my wedding day."
Andrea Pollard said it was "special to have my dad walk me down the aisle in the dress the love of his life wore."
Pollard's mom, Barbara, preserved her dress for more than 30 years, and it took almost a full year of planning and design to be repurposed at her daughter's wedding.
"It originally had lace long sleeves and came up to the neck a bit — as you can see in the photo," Pollard told Insider.
She said: "I absolutely loved being able to use my mom's dress. My parents are still happily married so it was special to have my dad walk me down the aisle in the dress the love of his life wore."
Erica Anderson wore her mother's wedding dress from the 60s after finding out her own gown wouldn't arrive in time for her wedding in 2015.
Anderson changed her venue from a beach wedding to a backyard gathering, but the original dress she planned to wear would not arrive in time for the new arrangements.
Speaking to Insider, Anderson said: "Even if it arrived before the date, there would be no time for alterations. It was the perfect storm of the dress not arriving as early as anticipated, and the date being changed that caused the most perfect turn of events to happen," she added.
Her mom's dress was kept in a storage bin under the house and when Anderson tried it on, she said it was like the wedding dress had been made for the both of them as it required only the slightest of alterations.
Nicole Diaz rewore mom Loraine's 1983 dress, which had been handmade by her own mother who worked as a seamstress.
Nicole Diaz rewore her mom Loraine's dress from 1983 for her wedding in 2017.
She shared with Insider: "The dress was handmade by my grandmother who used to work as a seamstress. It was altered a little from what my mom had — the original had a high neckline and my grandma removed that for me."
Christina Moffet started her dress search within the family rather than going to a store and ended up falling in love with her grandmother's gown from 1956.
In a previous interview with Insider, Christina Moffet said she never really gave much thought to planning her wedding before she got engaged.
"I didn't know much about dresses and was dreading doing the whole 'Say Yes to the Dress' experience. I knew that my grandma (affectionately nicknamed 'Mite'), my mom, and my future mother-in-law wanted me to try on their dresses, so I decided to start with family dresses and go from there," she said.
Moffet said Mite's dress "felt exactly right" as soon as she put it on.
Gabrielle Mirabella's mom Regina thought her wedding dress from 1981 had been completely ruined by a leaky attic but kept it anyway.
In an email to Insider, Mirabella explained that her mom, Regina, had preserved her wedding dress from 1981 and although it fell victim to an attic leak, she kept it anyway with the hope her daughter could wear it one day.
Around the time Mirabella got engaged, they decided to check it out.
"So, we took the dress out of the crawlspace, and yes it definitely had some giant yellow spots, and it was terribly '80s chic' (my mother said that it was on the cover of a bridal magazine in the States at the time), but other than that it was a pretty perfect fit!"
The dress was cleaned and restored for Mirabella's wedding in 2017 by Nadya D Studio Design & Alterations who removed the old stained train and sleeves, replaced buttons at the back, and lowered the bodice.
Paige Pearl got married not only in the dress her mother wore, but that her mother's mother wed in during 1962.
Pearl said to Insider: "The dress belonged to my grandma Susann Devitt first. She (her parents) bought it at a boutique in New York and got married in 1962. Then my mom, Stacey Devitt, wore it when she got married in 1983. They're both still married!"
Having her heart set on a look inspired by a dress Elaine May wore in the movie "A New Leaf," Pearl's grandmother piped up that her own wedding dress was vintage.
"I tried it on and she cried and so, of course, I was going to wear it. Somehow it fit me perfectly so no alterations were necessary, but an amazing seamstress reconstructed the torn sleeves," Pearl said.
She added: "I figure if I have at least five daughters maybe one of them will wear it, assuming people are still getting married at that point."
Natalie Nicolson was another third-generation bride who rewore the same dress as her grandmother and mother.
Natalie Nicolson previously shared her story with Insider and said she originally thought she'd pick a more modern wedding dress style.
"There were a few I came close to getting, but nothing felt perfect in terms of price or fit," she said.
Her mom mentioned that her grandmother's Bonwit Teller dress was still in the closet, but she originally rejected the idea as she wanted something more distinctly "her."
Nicolson had tried on her grandmother's dress as a child and loved it, however, she never thought she'd wear it to her own wedding.
In the buying process, Nicolson said she went back to her parents' house to try on her grandmother's dress one more time, as she had come close to buying another dress with a similar full skirt.
She said: "It just felt right this time. My mom thinks she secretly coerced me into it — but I made the decision despite her 'subtle' hints, not because of them."
Lindsey Douglas's parents were married in 1984, and mom Mary had previously removed details from her dress to make a garter for her older daughter's wedding.
Douglas told Insider over email: "My mom had taken pieces off her dress to make my older sister's garter for her wedding. Then, when I got married, she took the sleeves, neckpiece, and other attachments off."
Her mom had seen example dresses Douglas liked online and thought her own dress from her 1984 wedding could be a good fit if they "took the 80s off."
"I only tried on one other dress before hers and it was my grandmother's, which was sadly too brittle and way too small," Douglas commented. "My mom did all the alterations to the dress. We did add a lace ribbon with pearls to the neckline, shoulders, and waistline. I'm so glad we kept the ruffles on the bottom, otherwise you wouldn't know it was the same dress. It's one of my favorite details of my wedding."
Tessa Rose Grindle-de Graaf never really dreamed about planning her wedding growing up, but she did always know she was going to wear her grandmother's dress.
Speaking to Insider, Grindle-de Graaf said she was named after her mother's mom, Rose DeGraaf, who she called Mamamama.
She said: "My grandmother first wore the dress in 1960 when she married my grandfather, LeRoy DeGraaf, while he was on leave from being a medic in the US Army. My mama, Susan DeGraaf, wore the dress for her own wedding in 1988.
"I never was interested in planning my wedding, so I hadn't daydreamed much about what it would be like until I got engaged, except for one detail: I was going to wear my Mamamama's dress. I had been sure of that since I was about six years old."
However, she said she had a different body type than both her mom and grandma.
To make the dress work, she worked with a seamstress named Shamsi Imani of Original Alterations in Dublin, Ohio, who took out the seams Susan had taken in in the 80s, removed the sleeves, added darts to the bodice, and inserted a corset in the back to make the dress close, and to complement the bride's natural shape.
Grindle-de Graaf said putting the dress on for the first time knocked the wind out of her, and wearing it was truly one of her favorite things she has ever done.
Sadly, both grandparents passed away a few years before her 2019 wedding, but she said: "Wearing that dress, something that both of them had touched with so much love, while marrying my David was overwhelming. I felt like they walked by my side the entire time I was wearing it."
Kate Tanner's grandma Rosella Rieske married her grandfather at age 16. Not only did Tanner rewear her grandmother's dress from 1946 at her own wedding, but she also wore her headpiece.
Tanner told Insider her grandmother Rosella Rieske married her grandfather when they were both 16 and 18 respectively.
The dress and headpiece Tanner wore to her own wedding in 2018 was her grandmother's, and had been handmade by Tanner's great-grandmother which made them even more special. The dress was barely altered, and only needed to be taken in a little.
Speaking about her grandmother, Tanner said: "When I told her I was getting married, I started asking her about her wedding and the different aspects of it. She showed me her handmade headpiece and I fell in love with it. She loved the idea of me wearing it and then mentioned I should try on her dress. I did and it was a perfect fit!"
She added: "I grew up super close to my grandparents and they both passed away within two months of each other, and just over a year after I was married. I felt so honored to wear her dress and headpiece, as well as having her and my grandpa at my wedding. It is a memory that I will cherish the rest of my life!"
Kate Tafelski wore her grandmother's 1961 wedding dress for her 2021 wedding after her mother had worn an altered version in 1989.
Tafelski told Insider that when she first saw a picture of her mom's wedding dress, she knew she would "never" wear the dress because it didn't fit her style. But because Tafelski wasn't able to have the traditional shopping experience due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her mother's wedding dress turned out to be the perfect option.
Tafelski's mom, Terry Kauffman, actually wore an altered version of her own mother's dress to her wedding in 1989. Kauffman added statement sleeves and had a hoop skirt removed from her mother Margaret Ann McCarty's original dress.
The original dress that Tafelski's grandmother wore to her 1961 wedding featured a scalloped neckline, long sleeves, and a lace-edged skirt. At the time, McCarty's dress was so popular that two more brides wore the same one a week later, according to Lancaster Online. She paired the dress with a tiara and a simple veil.
When it was time for Tafelski to have her mother's version of the dress altered, she took inspiration from her grandmother's original look. The first time that her mom and dad saw her in the dress, they were so happy that she had now become the third generation to wear it.
"Family is very important to us, and knowing that I chose to incorporate such a special piece of family history into my wedding day made them very happy, and I think proud," Tafelski said.
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Source: https://www.insider.com/photos-brides-rewear-mom-grandmother-wedding-dress-2020-3
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