Something Borrowed: Walking down the Aisle & Wearing my Mom's Dress

I love family, stories, sentimental things, vintage items, and Southern belle classy couture.

Fortunately, my wedding dress - borrowed from my mom - fulfilled all of that. 

Sometime in late high school, my mom and I came across her wedding dress tucked away in a box in the back of a closet, covered by a layer of dust. We decided to pull it out, unsure of what we would find... partly expecting it to be yellowed, wrinkled, and in poor condition. 

Much to our surprise and delight, it was in fantastic condition - still bright white, fresh looking and barely wrinkled. Even better, when I tried it on, we realized it was almost a perfect fit. 

From that moment, I decided I wanted to wear her gown as my wedding dress. 

However, it wasn't until almost a decade later that I was married: this past May 17th. 

It was an outdoor wedding, riverside and under chandeliers hanging from oak trees - the perfect setting for a vintagey, southern-belle-like wedding dress: 

But I didn't just slip into the dress that Saturday. Below is the story of the transformation of my mom's dress into the wedding dress of my dreams :)

My now husband proposed to me at Thanksgiving but I didn't return home from grad school until Christmas break. It was then that my mom and I dug out that box in the back of her closet and - with fingers crossed - opened it, worried that it might have lost some of its impressiveness since the preservation seal had been broken when we opened the box nearly 10 years prior. 

Much to our amazement, the dress was still in great condition. This is when I tried it on in our living room last Christmas: 

It was a little big and I needed to de-1980s the sleeves and add my own personality with touches of my favorite color, purple, but other than that we were thrilled with how it looked over 30 years after my mom wore it. 

This is a picture of my mom from her wedding day back in 1982; rather than purple, hers had pink details with flowers at the neckline and along the ruffled hem:

Plus, you won't believe it BUT my mom still had the Brides magazine that she first saw her dress in!?! It was showcased on the front cover: 

My mom had loved how different that dress was but never expected to actually be able to find it - she was married before the age of google and the far-reaches of the internet to track down her dream dress ;) Fortunately, as fate would have it, after several unsuccessful shopping trips, she stumbled upon THAT dress and upon trying it on, she knew she had to have it. She called my grandmother who drove to the store and agreed that it was the perfect fit and look for my mom so they bought it on the spot. 

To turn my mom's perfect dress into my perfect dress, we weren't sure how much it would cost and who on earth we could trust to cut, sew and update the dress. Fortunately, my fabulous wedding planner, Bethany Boles Hewitt, told us of the equally fabulous seamstress, Pat Wilcox. 

My mom and I set up a meeting with Mrs. Pat and I invited my granny along as well. Mrs. Pat was affordable, sweet, creative and totally got our vision for the dress. I described what I was hoping for and she magically made it happen. We met with her 4 times: my Christmas break in December, my Spring break in March, the end of April after the semester was over and then early May right before the wedding.

Here are a few photos of the process... 

After my first visit with Mrs. Pat, she sent me on a mission to find the material that she would turn into the details. I picked out purple and silvery chiffon + a few lace trims with the help of one of my bridesmaids, Anna. 

Here is an example of  one of the end products. This is a close up of one of the chiffon flowers she just whipped up from scratch, including individual beads sewn in to shimmer in the sunlight since I was having an outdoor wedding - her attention to detail and her creativity was phenomenal.

This was the bare bones of the dress without the details and with the sleeves taken down considerably: 

But Mrs. Pat didn't waste anything so she took parts of the sleeves (with all that 1980s excess) and added them to flowers and other details on the gown. She truly reinvented all of parts of my mom's dress. Here are a few more photos of the in between phase when we were experimenting with a few different options:

               

And these were photos from the final fitting:

During this process, we got to know Mrs. Pat and she got to know us. Seeing my mom and granny there at every visit and also learning my love for family and sentimental touches, Mrs. Pat emailed me the sweetest idea. She said it used to be a tradition to add the bride's name and wedding date to the hem of the wedding dress passed down. She wanted to know if I would like for her to add my mom's wedded name and wedding date along with my would-be wedded name and wedding date to the hem of the dress. I did not hesitate because I adored the idea. It was a sweet moment when we revealed it to my mom at the final fitting a couple weeks before the wedding; the embroidery is pictured below: 

The other mushy gushy but super sweet moment of wearing my mom's dress down the aisle was that my Daddy got to see both my mom and his daughter as a bride in the same gown. Here he is escorting me to the ceremony: 

So after 4 visits and about $500 with countless hours of cutting, creating and sewing, Mrs. Pat took this:

And turned it into the classy, sassy, Southern-belle like wedding dress of my dreams with touches of purple, sparkle and lace... and a story to tell

And the dress of my dreams was the perfect fit for the day I married the man of my dreams :) 

I'm not sure he and I will have a little girl one day but you better believe my mom and I had the wedding dress preserved just in case I one day have a girl who wants to carry on the tradition and wear our dress at her wedding... 

Sarah Grace and the Blog are Back with a Bang.... Or Should I Say a Crash...?

I thought I would be able to keep up with my blog in grad school but that was a funny joke. No time for blogging on top of school, homework, a job, an internship and wedding planning.

However, now that summer is here, I am hoping to bring the blog back.

One of my family members can't make my upcoming wedding but said that she was hoping to read a wedding blogpost since our last family wedding unfolded into quite a tale.

It seems she won't have to wait until the wedding this Saturday because I already had a blogworthy moment this past week.

I have not had a significant Sarah Grace moment in months (I broke a lamp way back in the Fall semester) so I was hoping that I had perhaps outgrown my klutzyness. It appears I was wrong - big time.

Last Friday, literally a week before the wedding weekend, I hit Scott's car... with my car. And it was bad. And by bad, I mean a really huugggee dent that my dad - who is usually pretty calm - described as absolutely horrible.

I had turned the wheel really tight when I parked but forgot that when I was rushing to leave Scott's apartment. I was going too fast and also trying to fiddle with my GPS and instead of backing straight out of my parking spot, the wheel sorta whip-lashed and fishtailed the front end of my car into the driver's side of his truck that is less than a year old. I felt like a kid who got caught with their hand in the candy jar - I knew I was in trouble.

I felt awful and was sorta worried to tell Scott because I thought with all the stress of final wedding prep, this was the last thing we needed to deal with. I especially felt bad because the night before was his last night of work as a cop and he had to stay late because he was dealing with a homicide. After all that and not getting to bed til 5 am, I was going to have to wake him up early with the news that I had severely dented his truck.

I walked in and told him "This is going to be really funny one day."
He immediately asked "What did you do?"
I told him I had a major Sarah Grace moment and hit his truck.

Fortunately, he was calm and positive and not mad and had great perspective about the whole incident; now I am even more grateful to be marrying him. After test driving both his car and mine around the parking lot, we were relieved that both cars drove just fine and the damage was only cosmetic. By some miracle, I hit his car just past the drivers door and just before the gas tank so nothing serious was hit and all my car sustained were some scratches and a small crack near a light on the front bumper.

He is already using this incident as leverage and for comedic relief if I ask him to do some task for the wedding or give some driving instruction, he says "Oh wait. Who hit my car?"

The really worrisome thing about all of this is that two days after I hit his truck, he was scheduled to drive from SC to TN to drop off his truck, some of his things and some furniture at my apartment in Nashville. That really needed to happen before the wedding and breaking down on the interstate with all that stuff in his truck was going to be less than ideal.

Fortunately, he and all the stuff made it safely to TN and the insurance policy is going to repair both vehicles for just one deductible. Apparently, this kinda accident happens all the time so they have a routine policy: the car that is the innocent bystander in these situations doesn't have to use their deductible because they are listed as property damage under my deductible... so at least it's not just me denting up cars in parking lots ;)

At least I wasn't having a fit of bridezilla stress ramming into his car intentionally ;)

Plus, since I got my dose of Sarah Grace out of the way last week, I hopefully won't have an incident at the wedding like tripping going down the aisle or hitting a bridesmaid with my bouquet toss, etc. ;)

Beyond damaging both of our vehicles, we haven't had too much stress and there have been no bridezilla moments... so hopefully it stays that way! We are both just really excited to get married in 2 days!!! :)

Updates from my Arkansas Family Wedding: Truth IS stranger than fiction

My only girl cousin - Mary Beth - got married this past weekend and it was the MOST EPIC wedding I have ever heard of. I was honored when she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids but I didn't know what all I was getting myself into ;)

To begin with, this wedding started off a little Redneck from the get-go because of 3 reasons:

1. It was a destination wedding but not to Cancun or the Bahamas like many of my friends guessed when they heard I was going. Nope, it was a destination wedding to (drum-roll please!).... Arkansas. When my friends heard this they asked "Why!?! What the heck is in Arkansas?" I tried to assure them that the destination - Hot Springs - was actually quite lovely but they were suspicious, still thinkin' it would be a little country. I told them that no, we would not be duck hunting after they got hitched and we would not be wearing camo down the aisle but they didn't quite believe me.
2. The wedding was happening on Halloween weekend so this conjured up strange ideas in my friends' minds of wedding decor even less classy than camo... something like cob-webs or skeletons hanging around. I am happy to report, though, that the wedding was very classy with ivory and purple decorations and only happened to fall on Halloween weekend; the bride and groom were not obsessed and doing some spooky-themed wedding!
3. One of the bridesmaids (the bride's sister-in-law) was pregnant... AND had a black eye. No worries - there isn't any domestic violence going on; she just slipped in the kitchen and caught her eye on the counter but, obviously, this looks bad when you have a battered and pregnant bridesmaid!

And then the Redneckyness just ratcheted itself up alllll weekend long as everything unfolded at the wedding. Below, you'll find the text updates I sent to my friends throughout the weekend that document the whole drama:

Thursday, October 27th

This first text was sent within minutes of my family picking me up. My uncle (the father of the bride) just nonchalantly said this as he shared the game-plan for our afternoon...

3:07 pm - "We gotta pick up a keg." - my Uncle Russell            

And after we had the keg loaded up, another memorable quote from my uncle...

3:32 pm -  Now we need to run to Walmart. Yea, we need to pick up a tree. Oh and we need a goat.

These were props for his speech at the wedding. He never got the goat but he found a HUGE tree (it was so tall that it bent over at the top where it hit the ceiling) because it tied into a story from Mary Beth's childhood. The whole thing was really cute, I promise! 

 

Friday, October 28th

7:20 pm - Wedding update.... Good news: my dress and shoes fit! Bad news: guess who is walking me down the aisle? The one GAY groomsman. Yep. My luck ;)

And within 5 minutes of meeting me, he tells me that he is gay, that he cheated on his boyfriend who then decided to break up with him. That, he said, was why he was drinking heavily but he hoped they''d get back together. 

However, by the end of the weekend his ex-boyfriend was already in a new relationship so the gay groomsman lost all hope and increased his drinking - so much so that he literally fell down the stairs. 

10:58 pm - So the rehearsal dinner ended with the Maid of Honor stumbling drunk calling another guest a stripper... and she apparently really IS!?! Plus, there is a prostitute present too. I wish I was making this up. I feel like I'm living in a Jerry Springer episode!?!

When the bride tried to speak with her to tell her to quit drinking and get her self together, things got physical. She cussed out the bride and threw her phone across the hotel lobby and broke something. There was shoving and screaming and crying.

Also, the pastor's wife and groom's grandmother saw ALL of this. 

The Best Man and baby-daddy to the Maid of Honor's kid (who was the ring bearer) intervened and broke up the fight. 

Saturday, October 29th -

THE WEDDING DAY!!!

12:01 am - The. Cops. Came. 
                   The Maid of Honor has been kicked out of the wedding. 
                   No lie.

6 cops (!?!) came up to our suite because of the incident in the lobby and nearly arrested the Maid of Honor. She was crying and upset AND she was in the room with the wedding gown and her bridesmaid dress. 

We were worried she might do something to destroy it so the bride's brother's girlfriend (known as "Little Bit"" because she is not even 5 feet and probably about 90 pounds) just marched in there and rescued the dresses before they could be harmed. She is now known as  "Sassy Pants" for her gutsyness.

The ex-Maid of Honor was so upset that she tried to walk home (barefooted without a phone since it broke when she threw it in the lobby) to Oklahoma from Arkansas!?! We ultimately got her back in the hotel and moved her to another room. 

Then they were concerned she might crash the wedding so my daddy was put on stand-by as potential security to stand at the doors during the wedding. However, before my daddy had to do that, the baby-daddy arranged for the ex-Maid of Honor to get a ride home after the bride decided this drama was too much. 
  
12:36 am - K, another update: more good news.... I got a promotion. Yours truly is now the Maid of Honor. I guess I have to whip up a speech now???

In addition to my promotion, the groom's sister was promoted to bridesmaid and - by some miracle - the ex-Maid of Honor's dress fit. This seemed right anyways for her - as family - to be included in the bridal party so everything worked out how we felt it should have always been.

..................................

Then we went to bed to try and rest after all of that!
And the wedding went off without a hitch :) No one cried - except for the gay groomsman. 

6:04 pm - Final (?) wedding update: I didn't trip and the speech was alright so everything went  well... EXCEPT my bouquet caught on fire. Yep. Can't wait to share ALL the details ;)

Ok. I was perhaps having too much fun with these updates at this point. I admit, that one was a bit misleading. My bouquet really did catch on fire but not as I was walking down the aisle. Instead, it happened while we were all sitting down for dinner at the reception. The bride said,  "Sarah! Your bouquet is burning!" and sure enough, the candle below the vase it was resting in began to burn the flowers. It left a 2 or 3 inch black, charred hole in the bottom of the ivory hydrangea bouquet :/
 
10:21 pm - Spoke too soon. Another update: on the way home, my cousin's car got hit by a deer. Good God almighty!!!

Fortunately, she is ok, though the car isn't. It was just ridiculous and so redneck. I mean you cannot make this stuff up!?!

As the night wound down, we ended up in the lobby where there was live music and all sorts of crazy drunk people dressed in costumes for Halloween; this all added to the bizareness of all that had happened with our wedding party. 

And the groom's mom had a bit too much to drink and ended up ordering a round of "buttery nipples" for the bride's family; now that is a kind gesture but if that isn't the most awkward drink title I've ever heard of, I don't know what is! 

Sunday, October 30th

12:18 pm - The wedding is over but I have another update that I found when helping everyone load up the cars. This was a wedding gift for the bride and groom. It is a "dictionary" book safe, complete with a pistol. I am NOT making this up, hence this photographic evidence ;)

I have no words. The picture speaks for itself. 


1:15 pm - So final (for real???) Arkansas wedding update: we had too many people and too many things for everything to fit in the truck. So, leaving for the airport, my youngest cousin - bless him - had to ride in the BACK of the truck. This picture is him packed in beside the keg in the truck-bed! THE END!!!!!!!!!!!

Yea, so... epic, right?


All in all, though, it was a beautiful wedding and they are happily married on their honeymoon right now so all is well that ends well :)