"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." This Old English rhyme has always been taken to heart by brides for their wedding day and it would seem Abigail Kingston has the "old" down pat by wearing a 120-year-old wedding dress.
An heirloom, the wedding dress was first worn by Mary Lowry Warren, Kingston's great-great-grandmother, in 1895. When Abigail was engaged, she quickly tracked down the dress with the help of her mother Leslie, who herself had worn the wedding dress in 1977. Leslie explained that it was usually tradition for the mother of the last bride to keep the dress so she had an idea where to start looking. They found the dress with Sara Seiler Ogden, Bride No. 4 who wore it in 1960.
Ogden was more than happy to send the dress to the Kingstons but Abigail was dismayed when she saw the state it was in. Wear and tear had gotten the best of the dress (being 120 years old can do that to you) because it was not particularly preserved, only dry-cleaned once after being worn by 10 women before, leaving parts of the dress disintegrated, if not with holes, and heavily discolored.
