It was the afternoon of Aug. 13, and my daughter’s wedding ceremony was just moments away. As I fumbled with the two dozen buttons on the back of her vintage dress, one button came loose and dropped to the floor. My hands were shaking as I watched it roll across the floor and pleaded, “Somebody, go get Sharon!”
My daughter Erin, far calmer than me, dug into a box that had held the wedding dress my sister, Sharon, had spent hours lovingly restoring.
“She gave us an extra needle and some thread,” Erin said.
Moments later, my sister arrived.
“I was afraid something like this might happen,” she said before carefully sewing on the button. Now the ceremony could begin.
When Erin first started looking for a wedding dress, she had come up empty-handed. She wanted something different, she said, maybe blue, maybe vintage. She ordered a blue dress online and wasn’t quite sure it was The One.
I wasn’t surprised Erin was looking for something out of the ordinary. After all, she had been living in Alaska in an off-the-grid cabin with her fiance, Ian, for several years. She knew how to cut wood and carry water from their outdoor well, and she had adjusted to using an outdoor toilet, even in the dead of winter.
Later, I was having dinner with another of my sisters, Kathy, and told her about Erin’s search for the perfect dress.
“I think I have Mom’s wedding dress somewhere,” Kathy said, just moments before returning to the dining room with the dress that hadn’t been worn in nearly 84 years.
It had been sitting in a plastic bag in a cedar chest for decades, and the material had turned yellow. Not only was there a hole near the neckline, but also there was a rust stain near the hem in the back, and the button loops were missing. I remembered my mom removing the loops to put on my wedding dress when she made it.
Still, the dress was stunning, with its cut velvet rayon material and timeless A-line style. Someone recalled that Mom said she bought the dress from a Sears Roebuck catalog in 1937 for the astronomical Depression-era price of $12.
I brought the dress home and decided to remove the lining from my wedding dress and pinned it into Mom’s. It fit perfectly. Then I took photos of the dress and texted them to Erin.
Erin liked the dress despite the damage and asked me to send it to her so she could try it on. A week later, she sent back photos. The dress fit.
She said she knew a woman in Alaska who was willing to try to fix it, but when I told Sharon about the plan, she said she had always loved Mom’s dress and would like to try fixing it herself.
Again the dress went in the mail, this time to Atchison, Kan., where Sharon, an excellent seamstress, lives. When she got the dress, she decided it needed cleaning and sent it to a restoration company in New York.
Weeks later, a representative from the company called in a near panic, saying she had put the dress in a mild cleaning solution and the material had started to disintegrate. She assured my sister, though, that the owner was coming in to repair the dress, and it would be OK.
Soon the dress made its way back to Kansas, and Sharon called in distress.
“I don’t think Erin is going to want to wear this. They did the best they could, but you can see where the repairs are, and I think it shrunk!”
Time was getting short, so I assured Sharon we could find another dress, but she called back the next day.
“I think I may be able to make it work,” she said. “I’m not sure, but I want to try.”
Over the next few months, my sister worked tirelessly to repair the dress. She even ended up cutting off parts of both sleeves to cover some of the damage from the cleaning solution.
Six weeks before the wedding, Sharon texted me: “I’ve done what I can. I still don’t know if she’ll want to wear it. It looks beautiful on my dress form, but it has noticeable repairs when you look closely. Plus, it is fragile and may not fit with all the repairs and some shrinkage.”
The dress arrived in Alaska on July 8. Erin sent me photos with a text: “It fits great! My only concern is the sleeves and shoulders are so fragile, I can’t really bend my elbows, and I definitely can’t get them above my head.”
Erin mulled over whether to send the dress back to my sister and have her shorten the sleeves, but she didn’t want to risk not getting the dress back in time for the wedding, so she decided to wear the dress as it was, and hope for the best.
When it was time for the ceremony and Erin and Ian came around the corner of the cabin, there was a collective gasp. My mom’s wrinkled, yellow wedding gown had been restored to its original glory.
It was creamy white and looked perfect. And of course, Erin looked lovely, even down to the brand-new cowboy boots she had added to her ensemble.
Eighty-four years after my mother wore it, the dress was back and better than ever.
Who knows? Maybe someday a great-granddaughter will consider wearing it, too.
