In these days when brides don’t necessarily wear their wedding dresses to their own wedding receptions — they have a second or possibly third dress for that— Jeanie Tade is an exception.
She’s a bride who almost seven decades after her 1956 wedding is still getting use out of her bridal veil.
In 2021, Jeanie started what has become a tradition.
She and her husband, Miles, were going for an anniversary dinner at the Scotch & Sirloin that year, and Jeanie stealthily opened the box under their bed where she keeps the wedding dress her mother made her.
After carefully folding her veil, Jeanie put it in a gift bag.
Miles was not pleased when he saw her toting the bag into the restaurant.
“You said we’re not going to buy each other gifts,” he chided her.
“Just settle down,” she told him.
When they got to their seats, Jeannie pulled out the veil and placed it on her head. She kept it on for the whole meal.
Miles laughed.
Jeannie is shown with her wedding dress, which her mother sewed. Each of the dress’ 80 beaded flowers took her mother about an hour to make.
“He likes the ornery things I do,” she said. “It’s part of our relationship to have fun.”
Four businessmen also dining at the restaurant saw what was happening and surreptitiously picked up the tab for the Tades, “which was awfully nice,” Jeanie said.
Her little stunt was much friendlier than some Miles has pulled on her through the years, starting when they both were at Anthony High School about an hour southwest of Wichita.
“Oh, we just teased back and forth,” Jeanie said.
Miles once pulled “one of his ornery tricks” by sneaking a formaldehyde-soaked 10-inch worm into her coat.
As they were walking to a sweet shop, Jeannie put her hand in her pocket “and there’s this cold, wet worm, and I threw it in the air and screamed.”
She said she was only teasingly pretending to be mad, though she added, “He knows not to do that one again.”
Originally, Jeanie was dating Miles’ friend Gibby. The three were a trio. When Jeanie and Gibby quit going out, Jeanie eventually decided she liked the third person in their threesome.
“I chased Miles ’til I caught him,” she said. “I saw the qualities that I still treasure today. He was friendly. . . . He was kind, and he was fun.”
Though her wedding dress no longer fits, Jeanie plans to keep bringing out her veil for her anniversaries, so you might keep an eye out on Sept. 2 because they’re going to dinner again.
Jeanie said no one seems to look at them like they’re crazy.
“I guess they see that we’re having fun.”–
