Published: January 06, 2007 08:51 pm         

Granddaughter plans to wear grandmother’s wedding dress

Terre Haute — When Aline Mascari, 82, of Terre Haute put away her wedding dress, she didn’t know what she was saving it for.

“The lace was so beautiful,” she said. “I thought I had so many grandchildren that maybe I would have it cut into pieces and have the lace put into handkerchiefs for the girls, but now Caroline can have it.”

Milwaukee native Caroline Mascari, 26, one of Aline Mascari’s 26 grandchildren, will be wearing the dress Jan. 16 when she gets married in the Chapel of the Choir in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“She was the exact same size that I am now,” Caroline Mascari said. “It fits me perfectly.”

Her grandmother had kept the dress in a trunk and would get it out occasionally to put blue tissue on it and fold it over because she said she had read somewhere that’s what is used to preserve dresses.

Made with white Chantilly lace, it was last worn for Aline Mascari’s wedding in 1946. It also has a net yoke outlined in lace medallions with a long figure bodice and a long row of buttons down the back.

One of the reasons the dress works well for Caroline Mascari is because it has long sleeves to fit the dress code for St. Peter’s Square, she said, which requires brides to be covered so the current sleeveless or spaghetti strap styles wouldn’t be appropriate.

“I think the style where you’re more covered is beautiful,” Caroline Mascari said. “It’s original.”

About 15 people are coming from the United States to see Caroline Mascari marry Jude McSharry, 30, of Ireland.

The two wanted to marry at the place where they met about two years ago, she said.

She was studying communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and staying in student housing that enforced a curfew.

When she missed her curfew after going out with a friend, they had to sit on the porch and wait until the doors would be unlocked at 6 a.m., but it was only 3 a.m.

While they waited, a taxi pulled up with two men in it who wanted to see St. Peter’s Square at night. McSharry was one of those men who was on a layover in Rome on his way to Albania to do some volunteer work with sick children.

They began talking to the women on the step and asked them where they were from. On the first try, McSharry guessed they were from Milwaukee, which to this day they still don’t know what made him guess that.

After a while they went to a restaurant around 5 a.m. to celebrate McSharry’s birthday, Caroline Mascari said. They ran into each other again in the square the next day and one thing led to another.

“I think it’s just Providence that we met and it all worked out very well,” said Caroline Mascari, who now lives in Ireland.

She will graduate in March with a master’s degree in international relations and McSharry finishes his residency to become a doctor in June, she said. They plan to move from Sligo, Ireland, to Dublin in June.

In addition to getting married in Rome, they are also going to have an audience with Pope Benedict XVI on Jan. 17, Aline Mascari said. It’s for people who’ve gotten married there in the past few months.

If Caroline Mascari wears her wedding dress, she’ll get a special blessing, Aline Mascari said.

For Caroline Mascari, she said the most important thing isn’t that she’s wearing her grandmother’s dress, but that her grandmother is going to be there.

“I’m so thankful that she’s making the trip over to Rome,” she said. “It just really makes it perfect that she’s coming.”

Whatever happens to the dress next is up to her grandmother, she said.

“It depends on what my grandmother wants,” Caroline Mascari said. “I don’t know who will wear it next. I’d love for one of my daughters to wear it if it’s still around.”

Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.