Weddings dresses tell history at Presbyterian Church

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 29, 2025

A total of 30 gowns were on display the Saturday of Strawberry Festival weekend for an exhibit at the Vashon Presbyterian Church.

The dresses included four generations of islander Barb Huff’s family: The 121-year-old dress of her grandmother, who married in 1904; the 90-year-old dress of her mother, married in 1935; her own dress, a duplicate of her mother’s she sewed and which she wore in 1979; and her daughter’s dress from 2012. Other dresses included two hand-made flower girl dresses.

Also on display: The dress of Edith Roosevelt Derby Williams, granddaughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Married in 1941, Edith would come to live on Vashon Island until her death in 2008. The family will donate her dress to the Vashon Heritage Museum.

Visitors voted for their favorite wedding dress, and the favorite among the crowd was Huff’s daughter’s.

The idea for the wedding dress display came to Huff as she was going through the wedding dresses, sitting in boxes, in her closet. “I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful to show them off and tell their history,” she said.

She pitched the idea to other members of the church, who liked the idea, and the show was a hit at Strawberry Festival, she said.