1957 silk wedding dress has ironclad staying power

By Christine Bordelon
Clarion Herald

When Emerite “Emmy” Comboy and her sisters Joy and Gail were children, their mother, Frances Perret Comboy, had mentioned that the wedding dress she wore for her 1992 nuptials had been worn before by her mother, Suzanne Kramer Perret, and six other people.

“When we were little, we knew about it, but we didn’t try it on because it was so old and so fragile and vacuum-sealed in a box of my parents’ closet,” Emmy Comboy said. “We always talked about wearing it one day when we got married.”

The thought remained with the sisters even after their mother died in 2010.

In July 2019, Joy Comboy wore the dress at her wedding to Tristan Rimmer at St. Matthew the Apostle Church in River Ridge, where she attended elementary school and celebrated Mass each Sunday with her family.

The next year, Emmy wore the dress during the COVID-19 crisis for her July 2020 wedding to Jon Pujol, also at St. Matthew the Apostle.

“I guess after a couple of people started wearing it, everyone wanted to,” Emmy Comboy Pujol, 26, said. “Of course, with my mom being the last person to wear it, Joy and I wanted to wear it.”

10th time a charm
Emmy was the 10th bride to wear the same dress.

The first to wear it was their maternal grandmother, Suzanne Kramer Perret, at her wedding in 1957 at Spring Hill College Chapel in Mobile, Alabama. She was from the small town of Franklin, Louisiana, and married Norbert Earl Perret Jr., who was from Jeanerette. He graduated from Tulane University Medical School in New Orleans, and they eventually moved to Demopolis, Alabama, where he practiced medicine. 

Others to wear the dress include: Norbert’s sister Anne Perret Bacque (in 1964 at St. John’s Cathedral in Jeanerette, Louisiana); Lana Laws Downing and her daughter; Michelle Fitzgerald Ollinger (a daughter of Dr. Perret’s medical practice partner who married at St. Leo the Great Church in Demopolis, Alabama); Suzanne Perret Kneidinger (Frances’ sister who married in 1984 also at St. Leo the Great); Rita Montecino Perret (in 1987 to Frances’ twin brother Norbert III at St. Leo the Great), then Frances Perret for her 1992 wedding to Brian Comboy also at St. Leo the Great in Demopolis, Alabama.

Alterations rendered surprise
When Joy got engaged and decided to wear the dress, there was a big reveal of the dress on Thanksgiving Day in 2018 at their father’s house. Emmy believes her dad coordinated the retrieval of the dress from Rita Perret, his sister-in-law. She had been storing the dress since Suzanne Perret died in case the Comboy sisters wanted to wear it. (Rita Perret had all boys.) 

Even though Suzanne Perret had the dress antiqued to preserve it, it still discolored. 

“It was pretty yellow, and we were afraid the yellow wouldn’t come out,” Emmy said, when they saw it. Their aunt, Martha Williams, who altered the dress for the two Comboy sisters, didn’t think it would whiten, either.

“We were upset and crying,” Emmy said, but Williams, a retired home economics teacher, recommended a dry cleaner that whitened it.

Examining the material, Williams believes that it was made from natural silk – that is why it is so fragile now – and its lining is nylon material, which Williams believes may have been made from an old, World War II parachute, because, at that time, certain materials were hard to come by. WWII parachutes were manufactured in Marion County, Mississippi.

“It’s mostly silk with a lot of silk and cotton lace details, especially around the back by the steel zipper,” Emmy said. “There are buttons on the sleeves made from oyster shells.”

Since their grandmother “was tiny and had an hour-glass waist,” extra fabric – of a slightly different color – had been hand-stitched over the years to accommodate the various shapes of the brides who had worn the dress. Because of this, Williams had no problem adjusting it for the Comboy sisters. Williams also hand embroidered the initials of each bride onto the inner lining of the dress, using monogram transfers from the 1950s. 

Because of the dress’ fragility, Emmy and Joy only wore it for the church ceremony, then changed into another dress at the reception.

“It would have been torn up with all the dancing, Emmy said. “It tears with the slightest pressure.”

Sentimentality soars 
While wearing the dress, she and Joy heard comments from friends and family that it was amazing, so cool and so sweet and sentimental.

“Considering my mom passed away and she was the last person to wear it, we got a lot of sweet, happy smiles.”

Emmy, who graduated from Ursuline Academy and has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of New Orleans, now lives in Birmingham, Alabama, as she studies to be a physician assistant, following in the footsteps of her grandfather who passed away in 2009. She will graduate in December 2022. She is named after her great grandmother, Emerite Olivier Perret, Norbert’s mother, who was from Jeanerette, Louisiana.

Emmy says her younger sister, Gail, now age 23 and still in school, hopes to continue the tradition. And, maybe even her daughter, if she’s lucky.

“If the dress hasn’t deteriorated by the time my future daughter would be getting married, I would love for her to have the option, but unfortunately, I don’t think it will last much longer.”    

cbordelon@clarionherald.org