Amid the skyrocketing costs for today’s weddings, many local brides-to-be expect to budget a few thousand dollars for their gown. Unless they check one out at the Maurice M. Pine Free Public Library in Fair Lawn, that is; then it’s free.
No library card needed, no residency requirement. Just make an appointment with library director Adele Puccio, who has been collecting gently used wedding dresses for nearly 25 years, and browse through her inventory of 100-plus dresses.
Try them on at the library and take one home, then alter as needed.
Most of the gowns, donated by people from as far away as South Jersey and Long Island, have been lovingly restored by women who can’t bear to throw them away. When dropping them off at the Bergen County town’s library, they regale Puccio with tales of where they bought their dress and how a parent may have scrimped and saved to buy it.
“In today’s world, people are so angry and fractious and this is so positive—every dress has a story and I love hearing them,” Puccio says. “The donors love that someone may wear their dress again and the brides are so grateful they don’t have to spend so much money on a dress for one day.”
Sam Sadkin, of Harrison, is one such bride. After seeing a post on Instagram about the free dresses, she tried on seven before finding one that made her “feel like Cinderella. And it was great saving this huge cost for the wedding.”
Puccio is grateful for all dresses, but the ones she has are mostly in small sizes; she’s asking for donations in size 14 and larger, and those made in the last 10 years.
Brides are asked to return the dresses but are not required to do so.
Puccio asks that all donated dresses are in clean, usable condition; she does not send the gowns out to be professionally cleaned because of cost, though she has soaked some of the vintage dresses in Retro Clean in the past to lift out yellowing.
Make an appointment by emailing puccio@fairlawn.bccls.org or calling 201-796-3400, ext. 4.
Other local libraries lend more than books and periodicals, too, through a program called the Library of Things—where patrons can borrow items that you wouldn’t expect to find at a library, from snowshoes to musical instruments to metal detectors.
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