Kate's sister, Ashley, was next within the dress, seven years later, also in Briarcliff Manor. When she announced her engagement, she was asked where she would get her wedding gown. "I proudly said, 'my Aunt Sister's closet.'" (Since Kathy always called Maggie "Sister", rather than by name, her children did the same).
As was true in the other weddings, the families, and several of the guests, knew the history of the dress, Ashley says. "They thought it had been poignant." Ashley and her husband, Greg Maddock, divorced in 1991, the only real "dress marriage" that didn't endure. An artist and clothing designer, Ashley lives in Sausalito, CA.
Now, 26 years later, the 3rd generation (and sixth bride) is going to wear the royal blue bridesmaid dresses, in New York City on December 15. The bride-to-be, Kathleen Littlefield, an actress, is Karen's daughter—and the granddaughter of Maggie, the gown's original owner. "I'd known about the gown," Kathleen says, "but I didn't know where it had been or what shape it had been in." The dress was where it's always been between wearings: inside a large box hidden in Maggie's home in Erie, PA. Last Christmas Maggie flew the gown to Atlanta.Here
Karen describes the household scene: "In front of the fireplace, once we sipped wine, we opened this area to see what shape the gown was in after many years. Would it be intact, turned yellow, as well as disintegrated? We cut through layers of tape and plastic and removed layers of blue tissue. Gently we lifted the gown from this area—and it had been gorgeous, just like gorgeous as I remembered it." Next night, Kathleen used it on. It fits perfectly, "just such as the slipper on Cinderella's foot," her mother says (particularly appropriate because Kathleen played Cinderella inside a high school production years back). "The only alteration I might do," says Kathleen, "is take within the sleeves under the arms just a little." Contrary to tradition, her fiancée, Michael Pantozzi, an actor, was handed special dispensation to determine her within the dress before the wedding. His awed reaction: "It is magical."
