For many families, tradition helps to keep them close together , and to honor the relatives who have shaped their lives. Maybe you sing a certain song during the holidays, or you name your kids after older relatives who’ve passed.
Or maybe you have one wedding dress that many of the women in your family choose to wear for their own special days.
For the Stoneberg family, one dress has been present for eight weddings.
Adele Larson Stoneberg purchased her wedding dress at a Marshall Field’s department store in 1950. At the time, the dress was only $100.
She was the first woman in the family to wear that dress for her wedding.
Since then, seven other women have donned the dress for their own ceremonies, with Serena Stoneberg Lipari being the latest woman to join the club.
Stoneberg Lipari’s wedding took place in August.
Granddaughter to Larson Stoneberg, Stoneberg Lipari, 27, married her husband, Chris Lipari, on August 5th in Chicago. Knowing the history of the dress, Stoneberg Lipari was actually committed to including the dress in her own wedding for years.
“I knew I always wanted to wear this dress in some part of the wedding,” she told People Magazine.
” There’s really something special about it .”
It seems that the dress might have a bit of luck to it. Of all the eight women who wore it, none of them have been divorced.
All but the dress’s original owner were present for the wedding.
Larson Stoneberg has since passed, but the other women who shared the dress were present for Stoneberg Lipari’s nuptials.
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“She passed away just before I was born,” Stoneberg Lipari continued.
But in a way, the family matriarch was still there.
She went on to say, “wearing it made it feel like she was there on my wedding day. All through my wedding weekend, my family and I kept talking about how special it was that the dress lives on.”
Stoneberg Lipari also shared that there was no pressure to wear the dress.
“It’s never pushed on us to wear it. It’s always an option but it’s not going to be ‘the dress’ for everyone,” she said.
She shared with People that she’d fallen in love with the dress in 2013.
Stoneberg Lipari had seen pictures of the dress growing up, but after seeing it in person at a 2013 wedding, she felt more committed to wearing it to her own ceremony.
She also shared that she had a second dress for her reception.
Over the years, the dress has had some alterations.
The beautiful gown needed alterations over the decades, but it’s clear that it never lost its magic. At least, if the happy marriages that have come out of it are any indication.
And there’s hope that its tradition will continue for generations to come.
Stoneberg Lipari later said in her interview, “I would love my daughter to wear it someday. Hopefully it’s still around.”
It would definitely be an amazing tradition to keep hold of.
h/t: People , Chicago Tribune
