A woman who tied the knot earlier this month didn’t have to search for her “something old” or “borrowed,” she got both in her wedding gown. Serena Stoneberg Lipari walked down the aisle in the same wedding dress that had been worn by several generations of her relatives, making her the eighth woman in her family to wear it.
The newlywed’s grandmother, Adele Larson Stoneberg, bought the dress for $100 in 1950 at a Marshall Field’s department store. And it’s been pretty lucky for all the brides who’ve worn it. None of them have been divorced and all but one — Grandma Adele — are still living and were there to see the most recent bride on her wedding day. The long-sleeved, floor-length button-up dress has required some alterations over the years - panels added in back, strips of fabric sewn to the bottom - but it’s still in pristine condition.
Serena says, “I knew I always wanted to wear this dress in some part of the wedding,” and that she looked at photos of it when she was growing up and fell in love with it in person at a family wedding in 2013. She never got to meet her grandmother, who passed away just before she was born, but wearing the dress made her feel like she was a part of her big day. “All through my wedding weekend, my family and I kept talking about how special it was that the dress lives on,” the bride recalls. She also says she would love to keep the tradition going and have her daughter wear it someday, adding, “Hopefully it’s still around.”
Source: People
Photo: Getty Images