After our daughter Katy was married I asked her what she wanted to do with her wedding dress. Save it? Sell it? Give it to somebody? Preserve it? She decided that she didn't want to preserve it but would like to find something special to do with the dress other than keep it to hand down to a possible daughter some day.
This is a little closer look at the dress, but the detail just doesn't show up. After much thinking, Katy finally decided she would like to someday make a christening gown for their first child out of the dress. Obviously to be used by any other children that came along. So I saved the dress for such a time. Three years later, she became pregnant with twins! When we found out they were both girls we knew that we would need to get two dresses out of the gown. We talked with a seamstress at our church to make the dresses, however due to a injury to her wrist she was not going to be able to sew. My son-in-laws grandmother was asked and accepted the opportunity to make these gowns. She said it was really hard to cut into the wedding gown at first and she was a bit nervous because she hadn't made anything for a long while.
Katy picked a simple pattern because she wanted something plain, that would show the beading and embroidery of the material.
The two little gowns could not have been any sweeter.
Here's a close up of the material.
Even the little underslips are pretty. What a sweet and meaningful metamorphosis this was. I just love that these were made for the girls by their great-grandmother - what a lovely tradition and heirloom.
