jQuery Dialog doesn't display code from .appendTo in IE6

Question

I'm using jQuery's validation on a form. When the form is validated, I'm using a submitHandler to fill a dialog with data from the form then I open the dialog to display it. Works great except for in IE6. Nothing displays. I've tried initializing the dialog before and after running the validation code but neither makes a difference. Here's the validation code:

$("#acct").validate({
...
   submitHandler: function() {
      fillVerificationDialog();
      $("#verification_dialog").dialog('open');
      return false;
   }
});

Here's the fillVerificationDialog:

function fillVerificationDialog() {
   $("#dialog-data").empty();
   $("<span class='label'>").text("First Name: ").appendTo("#dialog-data");
   $("<span class='value'>").text($("#firstname").val()).appendTo("#dialog-data");
   $("<br/>").appendTo("#dialog-data");
   ...
}