Posted on July 16, 2024 by Barbara Bermudez
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.”
Estefani Soler is another bride who found her wedding gown, a long-sleeved cream-colored dress from the 1970s, through the Fair Lawn Library. A fan of vintage clothing, Soler jumped at the chance to check out Puccio’s collection when she caught wind of it from her former boss at the New Milford Public Library. The icing on the cake? Soler actually got married at the New Milford Public Library, where she worked at the time.
“Great things come out of the library,” says Soler.
Upon visiting the Fair Lawn library, Soler tried on a few dresses, including a ’90s style that just “wasn’t me.” But when she tried on what ended up becoming her wedding gown, she just knew it was the one for her.
“When you vintage shop you don’t want to wear something that’s very dated, you kind of want it to look like, yes this is dated, but also looks modern at the same time,” says Soler.
That’s what this dress embodied, says Soler, adding that she was also inspired by celeb Sofia Richie’s chic yet modest wedding-day style when she tied the knot with Elliott Grange in 2023.
Soler accessorized simply, with flowers in her hair, a necklace that her now-husband, Jonathan Soler, gifted her years ago, and secondhand shoes.
Luckily, she didn’t even need to alter the gown; the only money she spent on it was $100 for dry cleaning.
On their wedding day, the Solers had about 30 people at their library ceremony. (New Milford’s library doesn’t usually host weddings, but once Soler’s bosses caught wind that she was tying the knot at City Hall, they offered it up.)
Employees from other libraries came too, excited about the nuptials.
The couple celebrated at a local restaurant afterward with family and friends.
Puccio, of the Fair Lawn library, 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.
Other local libraries in New Jersey 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. But Puccio seems to be the only person with wedding gowns on hand.
Make an appointment by emailing puccio@fairlawn.bccls.org or calling 201-796-3400, ext. 4.
Additional reporting by Julie Gordon
