A Wisconsin woman made a devastating discovery when she pulled out her old wedding gown for her daughter to try on.
Calyn Strobel of West Bend got married back in September 2014 and then had her wedding dress professionally cleaned and preserved by a local dry cleaner, according to local news outlet TMJ 4. The box remained stored away in her home for more than 11 years until recently, when her daughter, Madilynn, asked to try it on.
When Calyn opened the box, she was shocked to see a dress she didn’t recognize. Her original gown featured a strapless neckline, a tulle overlay on the skirt and Spanish details, whereas the dress in the box had cap sleeves, a belt and other different details.
After realizing that the dry cleaner must have mistakenly given her the wrong dress, she said the discovery felt “like a knife to my heart.”
“It’s just devastating to think I’m not going to see my dress again,” she added.
Madilynn and Calyn’s other daughters had hoped to incorporate their mom’s dress — which was preserved along with her veil — into their future weddings. All of them were equally crushed by the discovery.
“I kind of got a sinking feeling in my stomach,” Madilynn recalled to TMJ 4. “[Like], ‘Oh no, this is not the right dress, this is not the one.’ She was freaking out, and I was freaking out.”
She added, “I always just wanted to wear her veil. Knowing that I probably won’t get to if we don’t find this kind of broke my heart.”
Calyn said she was excited to pass down her dress to her daughters as well as future generations of the family. “I wanted to keep it forever, give it to my daughters, have them keep it so they can save it and give it to their daughters. I wanted to save it and keep that tradition going,” she explained.
Now, Calyn is on a mission to track down her missing wedding dress. The dry cleaner is currently under different management, but the staff there are trying to help locate the garment.
Calyn is also using social media to spread the word about the mix-up, urging other local brides to check their preserved wedding dresses to make sure they have the correct one.
“It’s just going to take that one person to see this or one person to notice this dress to say this is my family’s dress and get a hold of them, and we can exchange our dresses,” Calyn told TMJ 4.
In the meantime, she is hopeful that she will eventually be reunited with her dress. “It means so much to me,” she said of the garment. “The bond between a bride and her wedding dress on that day — like, everything else goes away, right? You have all the great memories and your dress. That’s why it means so much.”
