Bride wears 3rd-generation wedding dress for a lucky marriage like her grandmother, mother

— -- Jordan Delgado’s mother and grandmother have been married to their respective spouses for a combined 100 years.

Delgado, 23, on Saturday walked down the aisle in the same wedding dress worn by those two women in hopes it will bring a marriage as successful as each of their own.

“It was really special,” said Delgado, whose mother, Lynn Mitterholzer, and grandmother Jean Beckdahl, both saw her marry in their dress. “I really did feel beautiful in it.”

Beckdahl, 87, purchased the dress at a department store in her hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, in the early 1950s.

She wore the dress at her April 1953 wedding to Delgado’s grandfather, who also attended the wedding.

Beckdahl kept the dress stored in a closet in her home until Delgado’s mom, Mitterholzer, told her she wanted to wear it at her wedding in September 1981.

“I feel very pleased and very honored that they’ve both chosen to wear my wedding dress,” said Beckdahl, who could not recall how much she paid for the dress. “I hope they have as many happy years of marriage as my husband and I have.”

Mitterholzer said she remembers the moment 36 years ago when her dad saw her in her mother’s wedding dress.

“It really pulled at my heartstrings, seeing the look on his face and knowing that I was wearing his wife’s wedding dress and I was his only daughter,” she said. “It was really a special moment.”

Mitterholzer had a similar moment on Saturday as she sat next to her parents and watched Delgado, the first of her three daughters to wed, walk down the aisle in the multigenerational dress.

“It took my breath away,” she said. “It was breathtaking to see her in that dress and the little adjustments that had been made just fit her perfectly.”

The dress, which Delgado also chose without shopping for another, required just a few new patches of lace and a few slight alterations to fit Delgado. The alterations process though took more than three months because of the delicate nature of the dress.

Delgado, who also wore a veil that her grandmother created for her mom, said it was well worth the wait.

“You could tell [my grandmother] was flashing back to her time of wearing it and my mom’s time of wearing it,” Delgado said. “And my mom got a little teary-eyed looking at it and said it looked the same that it did years ago.”