Napier Nuptials Wedding Fashion Show: Here comes the bride’s ... dress

Evelyn Ferguson modelled a 1920s wedding dress. Photo / Jos Van Dijk

A beautiful 104-year-old wedding frock got a new lease on life at the weekend.

The dress that belonged to bride Gladys Spriggs - elder sister of former Napier mayor Ron Spriggs - made its debut at Gladys’ wedding in 1920 at Trinity Methodist Church when she married James Drummond.

Its latest outing happened at the Napier Nuptials Wedding Dress Show as part of the town’s 150-year celebrations.

The show at the Taradale Town Hall saw Napier Girls’ High School (NGHS) students model 14 dresses from different decades at the Taradale Business Association’s Taste of Taradale Mid-Winter Cultūra Fest on Saturday.

Organiser and Gladys’ niece Ronda Chrystal was inspired to find and showcase the dresses by her family’s collection of wedding attire.

Chrystal said her family had been in Napier for five generations and she wanted to honour that history.

“My nana used to put hers on every wedding anniversary, so it’s probably a little bit of a family thing - we are fancy-dress people and we love a good wedding.”

Stevie Geurts modelled show organiser Ronda Chrystal's wedding dress from 1994, while Chrystal wore a 1967 dress. Photo / Jos Van Dijk

Gladys’ gown was the earliest dress to be modelled at the show.

“It was 104 years old, and it was beautiful and I think for a lot of people it was a highlight that there was still a dress from that time.”

With many of the dresses belonging to former NGHS students, she decided it would be a great idea to reach out to other “old girls” seeking preloved dresses and use current Year 9 and 10 students as models.

“They needed to be tiny to fit a lot of the dresses.”Chrystal even had her wedding dress on display, and a total of four dresses belonged to her family’s collection.

The event was attended by some of the original brides and their bridesmaids, with some surprised at how similar the models looked to them when they were married in the dresses.

One dress was worn three times at separate weddings in 1945, 1946 and again in 2000 by different brides of the same family.

“The brides that are still with us were so excited to see their dresses come out of the cupboard.”

Chrystal said a big factor of the show was portraying the different decades and the change in style, and each dress had the model’s hair and shoes to match the era.

“They go through such different decades of style and the 70s dress was absolutely beautiful - but it’s very 70s.”

Chrystal said the older dresses were made in New Zealand or by members of the bride’s family.

Kathryn Chrystal modelled a 2001 wedding dress. Photo / Jos Van Dijk

Chrystal felt all dresses reflected trends that were popular in bridalwear during the specific decade and said a lot of the dresses had long sleeves and were “classic”.

“You see the 80s with the bows, that was such a big thing putting a bow on everything.”

She said it was interesting to understand women’s history through the lens of wedding fashion within Napier.

Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay newsrooms. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.