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The Legacy Museum on Main hosted a wedding tea on Saturday to celebrate its newest exhibit, Weddings of West Georgia: Something Old, Something New.

Besides the tea and fancy cakes, the reception gave contributors to this exhibit, their families and the general public an opportunity to view wedding artifacts that date back to as early as 1825.

Meredith Adams had made two of the wedding gowns that are part of this exhibit.

“I have been sewing since I was in eighth grade. I had made my wedding dress and my daughter always said, ‘Mamma, will you make my wedding dress?’ so I did,” Adams said. “We went to New York City to buy the silk. We didn’t have a pattern, we just took ideas from different dresses and put them all together.”

Laura Harlin, Adams’ daughter, said that she and her mother had gone to different shops looking at dresses for the ideas that they finally used for her dress.

“In one of the shops, they wouldn’t even let me try on a dress that had Swarovski Crystals sewn on it, I was told that I could never afford a dress like that,” Harlin said. “When we left that shop I told my mother that I wanted Swarovski Crystals on my dress and she did sew them on for me.”

It is the cost of the labor for sewing all of the beads on that prohibits many brides from having the crystals adorn their wedding gowns. Harlin’s gown has the crystals plus eight rows of beads sewn on to the more than 10 foot circumference of the gown’s hem.

“We had everyone stringing beads, even the groom, but he wasn’t allowed to see the finished gown until the wedding,” Adams said.

County historian Clark Johnson was in charge of putting the exhibit together.

“It was kind of funny that the only man on the staff got put in charge of the wedding exhibit but fortunately I had a lot of help,” Johnson said.

Executive Director Kaye Minchew, Assistant Archivist Shannon Gavin-Harris and Intern Pimpare Hiranprueck all assisted Johnson in putting together all of the artifacts that were used in this exhibit.

“Dozens of people donated items to be part of this exhibit. Even local merchants donated materials that we used to display the items,” Johnson said. “Amy Warren, owner of An Affair to Remember, and Debbie Barronton, owner of Cakes by Debbie, were even kind enough to sponsor today’s reception. Everyone pitched in for this exhibit.”

Weddings of West Georgia is an ongoing exhibit that will be open until April 20th. The exhibit features wedding gowns, tuxedos as well as other wedding apparel such as gloves, shoes and even garters. Other artifacts that are part of the exhibit include wedding china, goblets, bibles and an impressive collection of 24, 24 inch by 17 inch poster prints of local people and weddings.

Legacy Museum on Main is located at 136 Main St., in LaGrange and may be reached at 706-884-1828. Admission is free for this exhibit.