St Lawrence Church in Abbots Langley recently exhibited wedding dresses worn by brides who have married in the church over the years.
The church, as it has done in the past, displayed six marriage registers from the county hall, stretching from 1960 to the present day. This year, the church had the novel idea of presenting the registers alongside the frocks donned by various brides over the years.
The event was part of Abbots Langley Festival and took place over the weekend of Saturday, July 6.
Eleven dresses were modelled on mannequins loaned from Hampton Court Palace, which had been obtained by a member of the congregation who works as a teacher at the Royal School of Needlework. The dresses were presented alongside wedding photographs of the brides wearing them.
Many residents came to see the exhibition and read the “lovely backstories” behind the gowns.
The oldest complete dress was from a wedding in 1959 made by the bride herself, Doreen. It was displayed alongside her daughter’s wedding dress from the 1980s, which mother and daughter made together. Another dress from 1975 had been made by a Bedmond resident’s mother-in-law and was worn by her daughter, who also married at the church, in 2017.
There was also a christening gown on display which had been made from a resident’s wedding dress from 1957.
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