Julia's Wedding Dress

When my niece Julia began planning her wedding, she asked her mother, my sister Jolene, to make her dress.

Julia in muslin.

Jolene inherited our mother's extraordinary talent for sewing and needlework and none of us had the slightest doubt in her ability to create a beautiful wedding dress as our mother created wedding dresses for her daughters.

Julia in satin with her husband David.

When I was in Colorado in January, Jolene asked if I'd accompany her, Julia and Julia's husband-to-be, David, to her friend Margaret's studio to get the process started. Jolene, Margaret and Julia used two patterns Julia had selected as the basis for a custom design. The plan was to create a muslin prototype.

I was pressed into service--handed a pair of scissors, some pattern pieces, muslim and directed to cut. At one time, I was an adequate seamstress, but it's been years since I had done anything remotely connected to sewing. But, like riding a bicycle, the skills came back and I happily cut away, delivering the pieces to Margaret, who rapidly stitched them into the prototype. Julia tried it on and she was delighted. Even in muslin, she looked like the happy bride she was going to be on July 9.

I had been present at the beginning of the creation of Julia's wedding dress, so I was eager to see the result. When Julia came down the aisle on her father's arm, she was a beautiful, happy bride in satin.  Her dress was perfect.

Watching Julia and David as they said their vows took me back more than thirty years to another Colorado wedding ceremony--Julia's parents, Jolene and John. Jolene's dress was Mom's tour de force: a full-length delicately knitted creation in white baby yarn, lined in blue. Like Julia's dress, Jolene's was perfect.

Julia's dress is the latest in a long line of perfect wedding dresses, handmade or purchased, symbols of love that create families and sustain through difficulties. Soon Julia will pack away her perfect dress, or hang it in her closet, as my perfect dress has hung in my closet for the past 42 years, a reminder of the day when David and I created our family, full of hope and optimism as we began the adventure that has been our life together.

Welcome to the adventure, Julia and David!