In February 2014, I found out my wedding dress was going to be unique and special and not without some worrisome moments. I was visiting my grandparents and talking about how I wanted to wear a lace dress on my upcoming wedding day but all they all seemed so expensive and had patterns I didn’t like. My grandma, Arlene Bender, said “well I have a lace dress and I’m not using it, you should.” We went to the very back of her closet and she gave me the wedding dress she wore in 1962 to wed my grandfather, Jack Bender.
It had been in a dry cleaning bag for over 50 years and though it was a huge ball gown style, it was teeny tiny everywhere else. Grandma explained that she was married at age 19 but there was no way she was ever that skinny “it must have shrunk,” she said with a smile as she placed the matching veil on her head. I squeezed into the bottom half of the dress before it became very clear that while it was beautiful, the dress was never going to fit me.
The day she gave me the dress was perfect – I heard stories for the first time about my grandma buying the dress with her mother and my grandparents wedding day. The dress told the story of the day: The cigar burn on the back from a rowdy guest, the bottom blackened and ripped from never leaving the dance floor, and buttons missing from the back for reasons I didn’t want to hear about :).
I didn’t know what I would do with the old dress but I was determined to find someone with some advice or expertise. Maybe it could be a veil? What if the fabric was used to create something else?….
I got to chatting. A coworker referred me to a seamstress friend of hers who inspected the dress and told me while she couldn’t do anything with it, it looked like the lace panels could be removed and there was more than enough lace that could be used as fabric to create a new dress. Interesting.
I kept talking about my quest to anyone who would listen and finally it fell on the right ears. “Oh this woman Monica is making my dress, you should email her.” Email Monica at Monirose Bespoke Gowns I did. I met with Monica in her gorgeous space on Atwood Avenue in July 2014 with my grandma’s old dress and musty dry cleaning bag in tow. She took a look, asked me a bunch of questions, and said she would gladly make me a new dress using the lace from my grandma’s dress. Since it was about a year until my wedding, Monica suggested we meet again in October and start the dress in early 2015. We had a plan!
I was a very type-A bride. Details were wrapped-up according to the appropriate wedding timelines. To not have a dress until just a few months before the wedding was insane – according to every bridal website timeline – but I trusted Monica and her process. I passed the dress-waiting time by looking at the pictures of Monica’s past dresses and I trying on dresses at a store to get an idea of what I liked (turns out, I liked lace dresses. Shocking). When we met in October, Monica sketched out some ideas after asking me a bunch of questions about the wedding day and my style. I showed her some pictures I had been collecting. I had some fittings and measurements in January and then March. The “real” things began in April.
That’s right. I didn’t actually see or try on the first version of my dress for the first time until April, a mere two months before the June wedding. If this sounds scary to any brides out there, it was. I couldn’t visualize the dress even though I knew the fabric and I saw the sketches. As the wedding day got closer, people would ask “what does your dress look like?!” I tried not to panic as I told them “well I don’t really have one yet, but I will!”
I tried my dress on for the first time with my mom and sister – who were slightly bummed on missing out on the whole dress-shopping tradition (but really, they were probably very relieved – I can be known as “picky”).
Even though there were parts not-yet finished, I knew and they knew: this was it. It was perfect. It was so light and felt like a nightgown. It was super flattering. It looked like it was made for me because, of course, it was. The best part was the fabric. I loved that the lace that adorned my grandma on her wedding day would be joining me for mine.
When I picked up the dress on June 18, 2015, just about a week before the big day, I didn’t try it on. I had multiple fittings over the previous weeks, the details were all in place, I loved it and knew it was right. Monica handed it to me with a new bag and new hanger. It was ready.
After all my nervousness over timelines, I ended up really loving the whole process – that I could tell Monica to take a few inches off the bottom right before I picked it up because I had super cute shoes to show off, that a strap or button could be moved at anytime, that it fit my body so perfectly and everything was in place where it should be, and the fabric was soft and not stiff-feeling like many of the store dresses I tried on.
On my wedding day, I slipped on the dress – with zipper help from my bridesmaids – and it felt perfect. It was more comfortable than jeans and a t-shirt.
As I hugged guests during the big day, I kept touching the dress as I explained “this was my grandma’s.” Those were her buttons. Her lace.
I added my own memories to that dress when I danced the night away and covered the bottom with thick, dark stains that can only come from too much fun.
Jack Bender, grandma’s groom.
And I got my own rowdy burn hole in the lace from a stray spark when I lit off the grand finale of the fireworks show with a blow torch. Grandma couldn’t have been more proud.
After all the fun and importance of the day, the dress was carefully cleaned and now hangs in my own closet in a bag. Someday, it will go to someone else to make their own stains, holes, and memories.
Arlene Bender saw her granddaughter exchange vows, cut wedding cake, and dance with Bucky Badger in the dress she wore almost exactly 53 years before. And thanks to Monica’s brilliant work, I have a new family heirloom that means the world to me and to my beloved grandma.
The pictures of the process, the memories of my wedding day, and, most importantly, the dress itself, have been of great comfort to me recently. Grandma Bender passed away in February 2016, two years after that special day when she gifted me her wedding dress. I think about her kindness, support, smile – that laugh! – all the time, but knowing how happy my wedding and the dress made her is one of the best thoughts that runs through my mind. And while she certainly spoiled me with many many things throughout my life, the dress and the bond between us that it represents is the gift I cherish most of all.
Arlene, 1962. Kailey, 2015.
Dress, 1962. Dress, 2015.
Kailey Bender 
What a fun story. I read it start to finish. Loved it!!! Mary burns
Awwwww……Such a beautiful story! Scrolling down reading and following through the pictures…..I didn’t want it to end! I found myself scrolling back and forth to Arlene and her granddaughter on both their wedding day pic’s……..Oh my Gosh…….They look like twin sisters when you compare their wedding day! Would be awesome to have a side by side picture showing the history of one dress. An Heirloom to Cherish for sure. Such a Special gift and Memory of her Grandmother. RIP Arlene Bender…..we miss you very much ❤
Great idea Candy! I updated the post with some side by side pictures! Thank you, Kailey
Great idea Candy! I updated the post with some side by side pictures! Thank you, Kailey
What a beautiful story. I never knew … and Arlene never told me. She was a beautiful, kind hearted, loving woman. I loved her smile and kind words she always had to say. For her to offer you her wedding dress ….. years later … and you want to wear it … is so very special. I loved the design you choose. And to have so much fun in it with all your friends and new husband. She is looking down on you to this day ….. Thanks for sharing your story. Mrs. K. Derge
What a beautiful story…I miss your grandma and had the priveledge of sharing a dance or two at a tavern league convention in Stevens Point dancing in a group…that is when our legs still cooperated many moons ago! Oh, the memories! You and your grandma were two very beautiful brides, Kailey. God bless you for sharing!!!
Such a great story and yes I’m sure she is looking down on you with Love everyday! That was such a great gesture to give you her dress, I am so proud that you have chosen to take it and make it your own! I miss Arlene so much, every time we go by! We will be at the Concord house in August, it won’t be the same without her standing in the doorway waving hello!
She was such a great person and friend! Deb Green
What a beautiful story….it made me laugh and cry at the same time! May the bond you had with Grandma Bender and the memories last a lifetime…I will be waiting to see who wears the dress next 😊