👰 The Store of Options: 37 Years Inside Angel Bridals With Rosemary

🍀 Bagpipes and Caber Tosses Return to Old Westbury Gardens

🏊 Oyster Bay Harbor Gets Ready for the TOBAY Triathlon

🛒 Suffolk Police Seek a Shoplifting Duo Who Hit a Centereach Target

There's a particular kind of armor women put on before they walk into a bridal shop. Rosemary sees it constantly, and she knows exactly where it came from: somebody at another store made them feel small. So before anyone looks at a single gown, she takes five minutes just to talk. Then she tells them the truth, which is that they're probably going to walk out with something they never imagined themselves in. She's been right about that for 37 years. And when the right one goes on, she doesn't need anyone to tell her. She can see it land on their face.

She never planned any of this. Rosemary comes from a long line of Italian seamstresses and wanted to be a designer, but her father had seen the sweatshop side of the garment industry and told her he'd break her legs. She floated a convent. Same answer. Hollywood. Same answer. She said she was getting married and he said congratulations. Years later, in 1989, she and a neighbor bought a building in Islip to open a restaurant, and her own neighbors came out against it, so she had to get retail into the space fast before the zoning flipped back to residential. A cousin mentioned that a local bridal shop was unloading its discontinued stock and that in Europe people rented gowns. So they bought it all and started renting. The restaurant never happened. The bridal shop is going on four decades. Her partner Vicky, a nurse she's known for 57 years, came into the business in 1999.

They dress women for every occasion that matters: bridal, mother of the bride, bridesmaids, flower girls, guest dresses, Quinceañera, prom, encore weddings, informal weddings, beach weddings. Sizes run up to a 34, which matters more than it sounds, because they have watched too many women assume nothing in a store will fit them, order junk online, and bring it in to be salvaged. They have an in house seamstress, Nancy, which is close to a miracle these days since almost nobody is taught the trade anymore. Their original seamstress was with them 32 years. Nancy just finished turning a mother's gown into a christening dress. And because they work with a house that will build almost anything, this is a place where you can take the top of one dress, the bottom of another, add sleeves, lose the sleeves, and change the lace. They call it the store of options. They have a house rule that she'll say out loud to anyone in earshot: hangers don't have boobs. You have to put it on.

Gowns start around $250 and run to about $3,200, with the average landing near $1,700. But the number that tells you more about Rosemary is the one she asks for first, which is yours. She wants your budget before she shows you anything, because she refuses to put a woman in front of a dress she can't have. Fall in love with the wrong one and you'll compare everything else to it and be miserable. She won't do that to somebody.

The proof that this works is who keeps walking back in. She's still dressing families she first met in 1989, only now it's their daughters and their granddaughters. Last week a bride from Australia wandered in on vacation, tried on the first gown, said she had another appointment, and had her fiancé call two hours later to say it was that one. Nancy altered it and she flew home with it. Brides come from Europe too, since a vacation here plus a dress still costs less than the dress alone over there.

You can find them at angelbridals.com and Instagram where Rosemary posts customers almost every week, usually with the photos brides send her after the wedding.

Someone once toasted her to the next 37 years, which would make her 114 and the oldest bridal shop owner alive. A customer standing there said, and your point is? If you can, you will. Join us in welcoming Angel Bridals to the neighborhood spotlight, a shop built by someone who never once tried to sell you the most expensive thing on the rack.

Mark the calendar: the Long Island Celtic Festival and Highland Games returns to Old Westbury Gardens on Saturday, August 22, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., honoring the Irish, Scottish and Welsh communities of Long Island and the wider metro area.

Expect live music and dance on the Main Stage all day, plus the Highland Games themselves, where athletes from the Empire Throwing Club take on caber tosses and stone puts on the mansion's sprawling lawns. A Celtic Marketplace rounds things out with handcrafted goods, jewelry and apparel, and food trucks are on hand for anyone who works up an appetite watching grown adults throw tree trunks.

Early bird tickets are on sale now through August 19 at $25 for general admission, $21 for seniors and $10 for kids. If bagpipes on a summer lawn sounds like your kind of Saturday, this is the one to circle.

👉 Read more: Old Westbury Gardens

Athletes are gearing up for the Runner's Edge TOBAY Triathlon and Junior Triathlon, set for Saturday, August 22 at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park in Oyster Bay. The course starts with a half mile swim in Oyster Bay Harbor, moves into a 12.3K bike loop through Oyster Bay and Oyster Bay Cove, and finishes with a 5K run out to Planting Fields Arboretum and back.

It's not just for the adults. This year's Junior Triathlon offers two different distances for younger athletes, giving families a reason to make a full day of it at the park. Everyone who finishes gets a shirt and a custom medal, and Town of Oyster Bay residents get a $5 discount at checkout with code TOB5.

Registering before August 18 is the move if you want to guarantee swag along with your bragging rights. Either way, expect Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park to be busy with spectators cheering on neighbors testing their limits in the harbor.

👉 Read more: Town of Oyster Bay

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers is asking for help identifying a man and woman accused of stealing a haul of beauty products from the Target in Centereach earlier this month. Police say the pair grabbed the items and walked out without paying in the early afternoon.

Investigators have released images from the store's surveillance cameras in hopes that someone recognizes the pair, a common ask these days as retail theft continues to be a headache for Suffolk stores big and small.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS, through the P3 Tips app, or at www.P3Tips.com. Tips can be submitted anonymously, and cash rewards are available for information that leads to an arrest.

👉 Read more: LongIsland.com

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