A bride’s fashion choices on her big day typically wind up as the most important outfit of her life….and one that she’ll likely never don ever again! After the wedding zips by in a flash, she’s left with the question of, “What do I do with this dress?”
Week 40: Preservation
My mom had a very unfortunate story surrounding her wedding gown, where her aunt Frances had hand-beaded an extravagant dress for her that tragically did not arrive in the post by the day of the ceremony! My mom had been the one to design the dress, and Frances patterned it in Oklahoma and sent a muslin back to California for her to try it on. Her mom, Edna, helped pin it and they sent it back to Frances for finishing. But when Frances shipped out the final product, the airlines went on strike, and the dress was stuck on a plane in Texas!
So, the night before her wedding, my mom drove to the Del Amo Fashion Center (then called the Del Amo Fashion Square) in Torrance, California with her soon-to-be husband in search of a backup dress. She first found a gunny sack dress that she liked for $50 and bought it! But then when they visited Ohrbach’s department store, she found a white, spaghetti strap number that her mom was sure to appreciate more, so she purchased that one right off the rack, also. Turns out, it was only $13.58, and that’s what she wound up walking down the aisle in! Fun fact, this was in June of 1979, but starting in ‘81, Del Amo actually held the title of the largest mall in the United States until the Mall of America came on the scene in 1992.
Beann Millhouse and father Raymond Millhouse, Jun 1979.
Beann Millhouse and fiance Gary Foltz, Jun 1979.
Gary Foltz and wife Beann Millhouse, Jun 1979.
When the original, hand-beaded dress finally did arrive by mail after my parents had returned from their honeymoon, they ended up holding a backyard reception just to show it off. My mom remembers it had about 50 buttons going down the back! Her mom even recreated the wedding cake to match.
Beann (Millhouse) Foltz in dress created by Frances (Dean) Wise, Jun 1979.
Wedding cake created by Edna (Dean) Millhouse, Jun 1979.
What’s worse than the dress missing its scheduled debut date is it then hung in her closet for the following year after the reception, up against what was the exterior wall of the house. And due to the stucco absorbing moisture from the outside, the dress was ruined with mold!
Because she thought it was a goner, she told Frances to take it back and cut off the intricate beadwork and salvage parts of it to make dresses for the porcelain dolls that Frances would make. Frances did so, but not before throwing the satin gown in the washing machine, and wouldn’t you know it, the mold came right out. The fabric looked practically new again! Who knew one could wash satin? But Frances did re-fashion the dress into a doll’s gown, which my mom still has to this day. It may not be her original dress, but it’s a miniature sized keepsake at least.
Porcelain doll in wedding gown created by Frances (Dean) Wise.
As for the cheap $13.58 ceremony dress, my mom found it rolled in a ball in the downstairs “green room” of their house years later. When she went to remove it, the thing completely disintegrated in her hands! It just didn’t hold up against the test of time.
But, on the bright side, there was a collection of fabric and a dress in her closet that did survive the ages, along with a move to another city. My mom had inherited her 2nd great grandmother’s black hand-sewn jacket and skirts, plaid apron, and matching fabrics!
For a long period of time, we believed the black dress to have been Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell’s wedding gown, but after examining photos of her wearing the dress, it seems more likely it was worn in mourning following the death of her husband. In either case, it’s fairly shocking we have photos of her wearing the very same material that exists in our possession to this day, nearly 100 years later.
Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell with possible son, 13 Nov 1927, likely in West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
When my sister got married in 2015, she designed her own dress with her mother-in-law, who built it from scratch. Rather than opting for lots of beads and intricate lace detail like my mom had, my sister chose tons of ruffles.
Brittany (Foltz) Robertson in wedding gown created by Ginger Robertson, 25 Apr 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Since I had access to some of the plaid, scrap material that survived with my 3rd great grandmother’s dress in my mom’s closet, I made sure to preserve history and supply my sister with something old and something blue (she could pick which requirement it satisfied) by asking her mother-in-law to sew a piece into her dress, stitched with our ancestor’s name and her wedding date.
Patch sewn into Brittany (Foltz) Robertson’s wedding gown stitched with ancestor Elizabeth Rockwell’s name and wedding date.
Now that history was preserved, the next most important thing this go-around was that the dress was preserved! Following the ceremony, we had an alteration specialist pack the dress in a storage box built for displaying and preserving keepsakes. Let’s hope this family never has to experience a moldy or crumbling dress ever again.
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