Browsing the rails at a bridal boutique was never on the cards for Laura McLaws Helms when she got engaged. A fashion historian and curator who quite literally wrote the book on bohemian chic (her study of Thea Porter includes a foreword from the legendary ’70s designer’s daughter, Venetia), McLaws Helms had always known she would walk down the aisle wearing vintage.
“I generally like to wear things that other people aren’t wearing,” says the long-time collector, who already had “a bunch of wedding-y white dresses” in her closet at home in New York when her partner, Bryan Lindner, proposed. “When I first got engaged I thought I would wear one of those,” she says. “I had a white Thea dress, and an Ossie Clark I’ve had for about 18 years… But then I thought, maybe I’ll just see if I can find an Emanuel.”
Most famous as the designers behind the voluminous silk taffeta gown Princess Diana wore to marry Prince Charles at St Paul’s Cathedral, it was the dresses Elizabeth and David Emanuel created for former Bond girl Jane Seymour that sparked McLaws Helms’s love affair with the former husband and wife team’s uniquely ’80s brand of romance. “They did a lot of dresses for her with sweetheart necklines, tight bustiers, big skirts, and lots of ribbons and embroidery,” says McLaws Helms. “I have always loved those old photos of Jane in the ’80s, at the Golden Globes, or at Fashion Aid with Freddie Mercury. First of all she’s incredibly beautiful. But these very romantic, slightly OTT gowns made her seem even more so… like someone off the front of a romance novel.”
The bride-to-be was still quietly searching for a dress that could make the picture taking shape in her head a reality when fate stepped in. “I was looking, but I hadn’t told anyone what I wanted,” she says. Meanwhile, word of her engagement had reached vintage dealer Cherie Balch, who had recently come into possession of a fairytale Emanuel gown. “I knew that it would not be for everyone, but I also knew that when I found the right person for it, it would be pure magic,” says the Shrimpton Couture founder, who sources archive pieces for customers including Rihanna, Kaitlyn Dever and Tracee Ellis Ross. “The second I heard that Laura was engaged I reached out and told her I had something she had to see. I knew in my heart that it was her dress.”
“I’ve known Cherie for a very long time,” McLaws Helms says now. “She knows my taste and my body. When I saw pictures of the dress I was like, oh my God! She sent it to me and it fit perfectly. It felt like fate, like somehow I’d manifested this dream.”
Alas, not everything would come together quite so smoothly. Laura and Bryan were originally due to exchange vows in April 2020. “A lot of my family is in Europe, so we had been closely watching everything that was going on with Covid – particularly in Italy – and getting more and more nervous,” says McLaws Helms. Around five weeks before what would have been their big day, the couple hit send on an email to their guests explaining that they’d been forced to postpone. “At that point I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen, I was just grateful that we had made a decision.”
Three months later, a celebration for 160 looking no more realistic than it had in April, the father of the bride came up with a suggestion: an elopement. “I had always wanted to go to this old resort in West Virginia, the Greenbrier,” explains Laura. “Dorothy Draper redesigned it in the ’40s and it’s just amazing. My dad looked it up and it had started reopening. He said, ‘How about two Saturdays from now?’ We were like, sure! We have nothing else planned.” When the bride checked the date in her calendar, she realised it was her own parents’ wedding anniversary – another fateful moment. “It somehow worked out perfectly for us to get married on this already special day for my family.”
The low-key affair required a different dress, and fortunately Laura already had the very thing: a flowy gown by Gina Fratini (another Princess Diana favourite) that she’d found online while quarantining upstate and waiting to press on with her stalled wedding plans. “I happened to see it on Etsy,” she says. “At the time I thought, if I do end up getting married in a courthouse, I can wear this rather than my princess-y Emanuel dress.” Instead, she wore it to exchange vows in the picturesque grounds of the 18th century resort, as the couple’s parents and the bride’s family dog (“he was my flower boy”), looked on. “The minute my dad suggested we elope I knew it was the one I’d wear. I’m particularly attracted to clothes that are romantic and have a fantasy element, and Gina Fratini is one of my favourite designers.”
Laura added an orange blossom flower crown from the 1940s she also found on Etsy, and a treasured pair of heels by her friend, the late Terry de Haviland. “He’d always said he would make me a pair of shoes for my wedding,” she says of the “rock and roll cobbler” who kept Bianca Jagger in platforms. De Haviland died in November 2019, and the bride eventually wore a pair of his shoes she’s had for some 15 years in his honour. “I had them fixed and resoled and made perfect,” she says. “It was really sweet and lovely,” says the bride of the couple’s tiny West Virginia wedding. “Even though it was sad that my brother and other really important people couldn’t be there, I do feel lucky that it was so intimate and special.”
The other bonus, she says, was that she and her groom were “super relaxed” when their postponed ceremony finally went ahead in the grounds of Bethesda Academy in Savannah, Georgia, in October 2020. It was for 30 guests, rather than 160, but Laura’s romantic Emanuel gown, with its pearl embellished bodice and delicate pink rosebud trim, had its long overdue moment in the sun. Her orange blossom flower crown, which she trimmed herself with vintage pink ribbon sourced from New York’s garment district, again provided the finishing touch.
For the evening festivities, the bride changed into yet another vintage treasure – the Ossie Clark dress from that original stash of white gowns at the back of her closet. “I can’t even remember how I got it or when I got it,” she says of the ivory damask silk gown by the icon of Swinging London, which has short sleeves, a dramatic open neckline and a ribbon-tie belt. “I know I found it on eBay. It felt so good to be wearing it – the first designer I ever started collecting was Ossie.”
“Other than having to reschedule I was pretty laid-back about it all,” McLaws Helms says now of her wedding journey. “I found it fun pulling it all together and making it as pretty as possible.” Choosing vintage for your wedding day is “really wonderful”, says Laura, who has a masters in fashion history from the Fashion Institute of Technology and buys almost nothing new, “except for maybe sports bras”. “You’re getting something it’s likely no one else will have,” she says. “I just love the history and the romance of vintage. Plus, the majority of clothing now just isn’t made as well as it was 50 years ago. You can get so much more for your money.”
Laura’s three very different, equally special wedding dresses all had other lives before she found them, but for now, “they’re staying with me. Even though someone did message me to ask if they could buy one! If I ever have a daughter, she’ll get them.” And of course, there’s always the possibility she’ll want to wear them again herself. “I’m definitely not averse to that – not all of my best friends got to see them. They need another outing.”
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