In June, Tess Newall got married in the beautifully embroidered 150-year-old wedding dress made by her great-great-grandmother. After the newlywed’s father brought the dress to Kleen Cleaners in Edinburgh, Tess’ family were informed that the cleaners had closed down permanently as a result of bankruptcy and that the gorgeous hand-made wedding dress had been lost.
The distressed bride took to social media to make an appeal for the 150-year-old wedding dress. She wrote a Facebook post hoping that it would help tracking down her gown.
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In the post that was shared more than 300,000 times, she wrote:
PLEASE HELP FIND THIS DRESS!
“I have just found out that the dry cleaners have lost my much loved wedding dress. It was made by my Great Great Granny in 1870 (I altered the top), and I wore it in June 2016.
Kleen Cleaners in Edinburgh used to be the best but recently fell into crooked hands and have gone into liquidation.
It seems that the dress was taken to be sold so it could be winging its way anywhere. Please share this far and wide in case anyone stumbles across it!
I realize there are far greater issues in the world but it means the world to us. More family memories need to be woven into its threads.
Thank you so so much”.
The appeal went viral and she told the BBC that she was delighted with the response with information, “There have been so many people just reaching out and being supportive and helpful. There have also been some really helpful leads”.
As Rūta Grašytė wrote for boredpanda, luckily, the landlord of the shop property came across this post, and after going through the shop, he found a “crumpled heap of antique lace on the floor”.
He contacted Ms. Newall’s family and told them that the dress had been found.
Just like she shared the bad news on social media hoping to track down her gown, she also wrote on social media to declare the good news: “THE DRESS HAS BEEN FOUND!
Finally, the dress was delivered to Ms. Newall’s house and is now safe and sound with Tess’ family.