Cash-conserving project turns into State Fair triumph

HERE COMES THE PRIZEWINNER-Cynthia Ordes won a blue ribbon with the wedding dress she made for her daughter. Photo by Jacqueline Watts

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Like a blue ribbon.

Admittedly, the Maryland State Fair in Timonium isn’t the place you’d think of finding a wedding dress. (Next to the mile-high ferris wheel? The corndogs? The farm animals?) But then again, it isn’t where you thought you’d find someone from Canton, either. And a True-Value hardware store isn’t where you thought you’d find the lace for that dress. And — well, we’ll get to all that in a minute.

Cynthia Ordes had no problem challenging all the preconceived notions. She entered the clothing department of fair’s competition and took first place. The project? The wedding dress she made for her daughter. It was her first experience with entering the Maryland State Fair.

A teacher of family and consumer sciences (it used to be called home ec) in the Harford County school system, Ordes is no stranger to sewing. In fact, she began hand-sewing at age five and first used a sewing machine when she was eight. So for her, making her daughter’s wedding dress wasn’t quite as unnerving a project as it might have been for some.

“It took me a good week,” she reports, looking at photos of the big day on her laptop, “and the dress looked so pretty on her.”

The ivory dress, understated, simple and elegant, is a floor-length, sleeveless princess-line number made of Venetian lace over French silk, and has a minimal train

It’s perfect. It’s flawless. It’s a daunting project for even the most devoted of mothers.

Surprisingly, it didn’t start out as Ordes’ project. In fact, it wasn’t even going to be a project. Upon getting engaged, Ordes’ daughter, Diana (whose married name is Skinner), came over to see her mother, toting an armload of bridal magazines. She’d picked out a few designs she liked, but when the two went shopping together, they were horrified by the prices the bridal boutiques charged.

“So Diana designed what she wanted and I made it,” says Ordes, shrugging off the kind of work that might cause shudders in other, less crafty, individuals.

The prizewinning dress on the big day.

The fabric and lace of the dress proved elusive at first, but were finally located in (of all places) a True-Value hardware store in Louisiana.

“I bought a plunger and I bought some lace,” says Ordes. Then she laughs. “I gave Diana the plunger at her bridal shower.”

The back of the dress featured 43 small pearl buttons which had to be sewn on by hand. Oh, and they’re real buttons, Ordes adds, “because I refused to put a zipper in that lace.” She also made the headpiece and veil, as well as a silk jacket to go with the dress.

The fall wedding went off without a hitch. The bride’s ensemble was picture-perfect (as was the mother-of-the-bride suit that Ordes made for herself). The wedding dress was a cooperative project, she notes; Diana’s mother-in-law-to-be sewed an Immaculate Conception medal inside the lining for the ‘something blue’ that tradition required, and a friend gave Ordes some design ideas when sewing the lace onto the fabric.

“It really does take a village to make a wedding dress,” Ordes says.

That experience actually mirrored her own as a bride.

“I modeled my wedding dress on the dress Scarlett O’Hara wore in the opening scene of Gone With The Wind,” she notes. (A friend crocheted the daisy trim for that dress, making it everything Ordes envisioned).

There were no last-minute panics about Diana’s dress. At least not on her wedding day. But right before the dress was due at the fairgrounds last week, Ordes realized she had a problem: she’d taken all 42 pearl buttons off the dress in order to have it professionally dry cleaned prior to the competition, and the judges weren’t likely to look kindly on a dress that came with a handful of buttons in a baggie as an accessory. An afternoon of fast but meticulous sewing followed, and Ordes and the dress were on their way up I-83 on deadline day before rush hour got underway.

After that? Just the typical mother-of-the-bridal-gown nerves.

“I don’t know how I’ll do,” said Ordes in the days before the word came about the dress. “I hear (the judges) are really picky.”

When word filtered through about the blue ribbon, she was ecstatic.

“I’m so excited,” she said on a happy laugh, “and my daughter is going to be just delighted.”

Note: Want to get an in-person look at the prize-winning dress? The Maryland State Fair runs through Sept. 6. Information including times, costs, entertainment schedule and more can be found on the web site, www.marylandstatefair.com.

by Mary Helen Sprecher
NEWSROOM@baltimoreguide.com