Roz Jones, Clarence Valley Independent
Lawrence Historical Society presents ‘A Century of Country Wedding Dresses’ as part of the April Plunge Festival.
Visitors can expect to be delighted with an array of beautiful wedding dresses, from the past 100 years. Most are handmade, some worn through the generations.
All with Lawrence connections, the exhibition includes: an African wedding dress, a black wedding dress, a wedding dress designed to be worn side saddle for a wedding on horseback and a 1970’s ‘hippie’ wedding dress.
All are exquisitely made, with a variety of textiles, some are simple, other quite elaborate.
The bridesmaids’ dresses and page boys’ outfits are included, as well as a bridegrooms’ safari suit, guess what year?
The Exhibition was inspired by Dulcie Reeves, who a few years ago, Dulcie Reeves, of Lawrence, presented a display of wedding dresses at the Lawrence Hall. The dresses encompassed three generations of handmade garments.
Dulcie has now kindly loaned these dresses to the Lawrence Museum as the basis for the Century of Wedding Dresses Exhibition and many more Lawrence ladies have loaned their own dresses to this exhibition.
With a very small budget, many of the dresses were handmade by the bride or family members and were frequently used by other family members or relatives.
From the 1940’s through to even the 1960’s it was usual for a bride’s wedding dress to be home made, by the bride herself, her mother or a relative. Living within tight means, women managed to stretch their budgets with making their own clothes. Dressmaking skills were passed down from mother to daughter. Often wedding dresses, and bridesmaids’ dresses would be reused, perhaps by sisters, or even mother and daughter.
Both Dulcie Reeves (nee Bailey) and Christine Reeves (nee Ricketts) wore the same dress. Dulcie wore the dress with a train from the neckline and Christine with a train from the waistline.
Unless family or friends grew fresh flowers, it was quite usual for imitation flowers to be used for the bouquets, and these would also be made by family or friends.
Another feature of weddings during this era was ‘bubble blowers’. As well as bridesmaids and page boys, young children would blow bubbles throughout the wedding.
Weddings can now be quite lavish affairs, but during this period, it was quite common for family and friends to bring food for the ‘Wedding Breakfast’.
Lawrence Public School is participating in the Exhibition. All students have contributed artwork focussing on weddings. All submissions are on display and prizes are being awarded to each category. Judging is by members of the Lawrence art Group, Lou Westmorland and Rosemary Baxter. Winners will be announced on Tuesday April 9 during the school visit.
Vice President of Lawrence Museum, Roz Jones, explained, “I was excited when Dulcie agreed to loan us her collection of wedding dresses, and now more Lawrence ladies have added their own dresses to expand this wonderful display. I also thank Robin Hosking for the loan of the mannequins.”
“We are delighted to include the artworks from students from the Lawrence Public School, with some very interesting interpretations of weddings.”
The Exhibition, A Century of Country Wedding Dresses opens on Saturday April 6 at 2pm and will continue through April during usual opening hours, Tuesday mornings 9am-1pm and weekends 1pm-4pm. Admission $5 for adults, 50c children.
This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 3 April 2024.
