Wendy Lawton’s Biographical Collection

Tom Thumb Wedding - 2008

9” all porcelain.
Edition of 75
$695.00

In 1863, a lavish, highly publicized wedding took place between two Little People. It was the P.T. Barnum-arranged marriage of General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren.

The magazines covering the wedding remarked that Miss Warren was 32 inches high and weighed only 29 pounds. Her husband was not much bigger. Theirs could have been called the wedding of the century. The event sparked America’s imagination and a play based on the ceremony, The Tom Thumb Wedding, was performed by community troupes throughout the country. The play eventually evolved into scripted mock weddings featuring small children, called Tom Thumb weddings, which were used as fund-raisers for schools and churches.

Wendy Lawton’s grandmother, Elizabeth Coats, participated in a San Francisco Tom Thumb Wedding tableau in about 1902. She is in the back row of the photo, second from left. The faded photo and her grandmother’s memories of that magical day have become an important part of Wendy’s family lore.

She draws from this magical tradition to present a tiny Tom Thumb bride in a brand new collection called Wendy Lawton’s Biographical Collection.

The blonde, blue-eyed bride is costumed in a miniature wedding gown of ivory dupion silk and point d’espirit with a matching cathedral-length veil.

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