Thursday, April 17, 2008

Tradition

When C was born, as I have said before, her Down syndrome was a shock to say the least. When the time came for her baptism, fact is, I really didn't want to even do it. I was so angry at God if there even was a God. (still religiously challenged) We went through with it to keep the family peace.

When I worked for a photographer, a woman came in for portraits of her daughter in her christening dress. It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen and I asked the mom about it. She said it had been made from her wedding dress. I just thought that was the greatest idea! I tucked it in the back of my mind.

When the time came for C's baptism, I wanted to do the same. My mother in law is a great seamstress. She asked me a good 10 times if I did indeed want her to hack up my wedding dress. There was never a hesitation. The one and only problem... my family.

We had a family dress that had been worn by all of the females for 3 generations. The gown was 100 years old that year. Well, to say the least, my mother was not overly pleased that I was bucking history. I tried to explain that I wanted this dress to have that special meaning to me... it was time for a new tradition.

I thought about doing pictures of C in the family dress just to have them to show my mom but fact is, and not sure exactally how to say this, I was just not into it. I felt like I was a hypocrite, I felt like C was not worth my extra effort. Yes, terrible, but fact is, that's how it was. I so wish I had done those pics now. Obviously, she was so worth dressing up and photographing in the dress. Of course, I can't go back in time but I did take some pics of J in the dress so I don't regret it twice.

Here are some pics that show the original wedding dress, C in the gown made from that and some of J in the family gown (and slip which I just LOVE more then the dress). Of course, you know I will be posting pics of J in her actual dress soon enough.






5 comments:

Becky said...

Ooooo....Peggy, you're all so pretty! That christening gown is absolutely gorgeous! Oh, to have the nerve to do that....

Missed hanging out with you the other day....wouldn't it have been nice to actually TALK as opposed to emailing all the time? :-)

Laura said...

Love these pictures Peggy! You are all gorgeous!

Hope everything is going well for you.

Jessica said...

Wow! You and your girls are so beautiful in the dress. If I had a girl, I would have made my wedding dress into a gown as well.

~~~~~ The House of Big Cheese~~~~ said...

I love them both :)

You have some beautiful daughters that is for sure!

sweetpeas said...

Your girls are precious! Passing on tradition is so important. Absolutely Beautiful!