Bride's Wedding Dress was Lost by Seamstress - Heritage Garment Preservation

A Wedding Dress Story by Lindsay

This dress has quite the story. Once upon a time, I was engaged to a different man and half-way into wedding planning, he decided he didn’t want to marry me. I had already bought a dress, which I loved, so eight years later while preparing to marry the real man of my dreams, we talked about whether or not I should wear this dress from the wedding that never was. My husband Jimmy is not superstitious or believe in “bad vibes” and is pretty frugal, so he told me if I still liked it, I should wear the old dress and save us some money since we paid for our own wedding.

The dress needed a ton of alterations, so I dropped it off in January for my July wedding. The seamstress kept the dress because she wanted to take in the skirt a bit before my actual “first fitting.” Long story short, I showed up at the seamstress two months before my wedding for my first fitting and THEY LOST MY WEDDING DRESS! She offered to custom make a replica of the dress, but I knew I would just be disappointed and compare every stitch to the old one. So my mom and I went out

Lindsay married the love of her life on July 6, 2014.

the very next day to go dress shopping.

Finding a New Wedding Dress

Lindsay looked in shop after shop to find the perfect wedding dress.

I have been accused of being a pessimist so, knowing I would have to buy a sample dress off the rack, I was convinced I was going to walk down the aisle in a stained, ripped, ill-fitting frock and miss out on feeling like the belle of the ball on my big day. We went to a couple shops and found a couple acceptable options, which was encouraging, but nothing that took my mind off the tragedy of losing that first dress.

Our last appointment of the day was at Panache Bridal in Pasadena, CA. I had told the lady who booked my appointment my story, so when I walked in the door, all the consultants wanted to meet the poor girl with the lost wedding dress! My original dress was a very sleek satin A-line with a strapless straight neckline, very simple, no beading/lace/bling, with a gorgeous three-paneled obi-style train. I knew I wouldn’t find anything quite like it, but I thought I would stick with an A-line silhouette.

As I stepped out of the dressing room each time, I kept noticing a dress out of the corner of my eye that looked so beautiful. I finally walked over to look at it and was really disappointed to see that it was a big tulle ballgown, something I never imagined I would ever wear or look good in (I’m 5’1″ and always thought a

Lindsay had a beautiful wedding day wearing what she wanted and marrying who she wanted.

ballgown would make me look like a cupcake). At this point, I was up for anything, so I decided to put it on “just for fun.” I immediately knew it was my dress when I put it on. It put the biggest smile on my face and I completely forgot about that old dress. I loved every moment of wearing it, and I really can’t imagine walking down the aisle in anything else.