Style show highlights historic wedding dresses

A large crowd enjoyed the fifth annual Somewhere in Time Luncheon presented by the Historic Upshur Museum at the Upshur Rural Electric auditorium noon Saturday (April 19).

Eleven models presented wedding attire mostly from the ’50s and ’60s, but ranging from the early 1900s to the 1980s. One, Penny Taylor, wore her own taffeta shirtwaist with princess neckline from her wedding in 1964 to Bill Taylor.

Several wore gowns of their grandmothers or other relatives. Another dress, a white velvet gown with a fitted bodice accentuated by a wide cummerbund and high collar, was worn by Savanna Jenkins, the granddaughter of the bride, Amy Gunn Patterson, who wore it in 1969 when she married Gary.

Brandi Bunn wore the original gown by Yapjece of oak white Spanish lace and crystalette, formal length skirt with a cathedral train in which her grandmother, Josephine Montilla married Glen Bunn in Big Spring in 1962. Her veil was secured by a headpiece of pearls.

Taylor McQueen modeled the dress Faye Nell Connally, her aunt, wore when she married Robert Mackey Parsons Aug. 8, 1969. The street-length afternoon wedding gown of raw silk represented the epitome of simplicity and contrast to the full-length, long-sleeved dresses worn by other models.

Becca King wore the cadet blue velveteen suit which Thomasine Spencer wore when she married William Beddingfield in Biloxi, Miss. on Dec. 21, 1952. Beddingfield served as the narrator for the style show.

Annie Potter of Big Sandy loaned one of those more-covering models, a 1900-reproduction cotton lawn gown with rose medallions and machine made strip lace which was worn by Lacey Hux. Ms. Potter also furnished the dresses worn by the junior attendant, Miss Kinley Robinson. The first was a dotted Swiss shirtwaist with puff sleeves, while the second was a flower girl’s dress of embroidered taffeta with raglan sleeves and a box-pleated skirt from 1956.

Luci Jenkins wore the next oldest dress, from Bobbie Martin Browne’s 1952 wedding in Muncie, Ind.

Mary Ann Ragland married William Patterson June 4, 1955 in a satin gown with bouffant overskirt of nylon net, pearls, sequins, and chantilly lace medallions.

Summer High modeled the gown along with two others, that of her mother’s 1979 wedding and Cindy Murry’s gown from her 1975 wedding with Dr. Steven Murry.

Among the other dresses loaned for the occasion were the gown of Kathleen Lindsey Collier made by her mother Grace Lindsey and the satin gown with detachable train worn by Betty Steele Slocum in 1966. Sarah Newman Monk’s dress by Edythe was of chantilly lace over nylon tulle and bridal satin dates from 1959. Peggy Lillich Bonds contributed her dress from her wedding in 1964. Paula Lange Shoemaker married in 1962 in a satin gown with lace overlay.

Other dresses which completed the show came from donations to the Historic Upshur Museum by the First United Methodist Church of dresses given to the Clothes Closet.


Mirror Photo / Mary Laschinger Kirby
GATHERING ON STAGE at the conclusion of the Historic Upshur Museum’s Somewhere in Time Luncheon at Upshur Rural’s auditorium Saturday are the models with some of the wedding dresses they wore in this year’s presentation. From left are Penny Taylor, Kinley Robinson, Brandi Bunn, Summer High, Luci Jenkins, Kate Glaze, Sara Beth Morris, Savanna Jenkins, Lacey Hux, Becca King and Taylor McQueen. gilmermirror@gmail.com