by Robert Kalfus
Jacklyn Iannetti-Rosenboom and her family will enjoy a very special memory this Sunday, when her daughter Nora, 5 months old, will wear her mother’s wedding dress for her christening. Jacklyn and her husband, Matthew Rosenboom married March 2018, and during her pregnancy, decided not to check whether their newborn would be a boy or a girl.
Jacklyn realized that she would never again wear her wedding dress, but when Nora was born May 31 this year, Jacklyn thought to reuse her wedding dress as a christening gown for her newborn daughter. Jacklyn brought her wedding dress to Leah Katz, of La Robe by Leah at 1692 Central Park Avenue in Yonkers. Leah is an extremely skilled and creative seamstress, operating for the past 18 years making wedding dresses, suits, made to order dresses and other specialty items, and alterations.
Jacklyn and her daughter returned to La Robe By Leah for several fittings, checking and planning that the repurposed wedding dress would fit and not be too tight on the christening date, because “my daughter likes to eat”, said Jacklyn. Leah noted that she “measured the baby, and planned ahead for the size the baby would be at the time of the baptism, including leaving enough room for her neck, and even managed to make a headband from the wedding dress for Nora!”
Leah Katz first learning sewing skills age 12 from her father, who had learned from his mother, a seamstress, how to use a sewing machine. At age 17, Leah was learning more sophisticated dressmaking skills and how to make fashionable clothing at a Paris school.
The christening will occur at St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church on Lurting Avenue in the Morris Park section of the Bronx, where Matthew Rosenboom’s parents were married, and where Jacklyn was baptized.
