Leigh Lillibridge likes to go “thrifting,” as she calls it. In fact, she got married in a gown she bought at a thrift store.
“I saw a bride bringing a gown to a thrift store in Kearney when I was in college there,” she recalls. She had a friend “who was supposed to be getting married, and didn’t have a lot of resources. So I waited for this gown to be marked. and in the meantime, my friend said, ‘Oh you should try this gown on.’ I tried it on and I ended up purchasing it.”
The gown had never been worn in a ceremony.
Lillibridge took the gown back to the dorm, where she tried it on in the commons area.
“And a gentleman came through and they said, ‘Oh go stand by her and be the groom, and we’ll take your picture.’
“Well, 27 years later, the gentleman in that picture is my husband.”
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Until her future husband posed for the picture, Lillibridge didn’t know him at all.
The gown was spruced up before the wedding.
“My mom made some modifications to the dress, because my friend’s proposal fell through.”
When Lillibridge knew she was getting married, she said, “We might as well use this dress.”
Her parents, she said, “were very frugal people.”
They told the couple they could spend a lot of money on a wedding “or you can spend a conservative amount on a wedding and we’ll help you a bit in three years with a down payment on a house.”
The couple decided on the latter. During the summer leading up to the wedding, her mom improved the gown by adding sequins.
“So that dress served me well,” said Lillibridge, who is now the executive director of the Grand Island Public Library Foundation.
For Lillibridge, going to thrift stores has been “a hobby and passion for probably more than 40 years — back before it was cool. It wasn’t something we had to do. My mom and I just enjoyed it.”
It’s been “part of my life for as long as I can remember.”
“I have darkened the door of probably every thrift store in central Nebraska,” she said.
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