NJ bride issues public plea after realizing her dream wedding dress — worn by her mom in 1994 — has disappeared
By Alex Mitchell,
2024-09-05
Situation all frocked up.
A New Jersey bride-to-be is feeling something blue after discovering her mother’s heirloom wedding gown — which she’d hoped to be married in — had been swapped out with a stranger’s years ago.
“My mother has been saving this for 30 years, and it’s not her dress,” said bride-to-be Samantha Pereira in a social media SOS .
Bride-to-be Samantha Pereira hopes to find her mother’s 1994 wedding gown, which was unfortunately misplaced. TikTok / @samanthapereirax
“My mother — she always wanted to see me in her wedding dress,” the Garden State gal told her followers.
Pereira supposed that the drama began when her mother Christina, of Union, NJ, took the gown to Newark’s now-defunct East Side Cleaners to have it preserved for storage. While there, the dress was swapped out or mislabled and handed over to the wrong owner.
The Post has reached out to Pereira for comment.
“If anyone recognizes that dress, we would love to give it back to the rightful owner,” Samantha, who now lives in Maryland, told NJ Advance Media ahead of her July 2025 planned ceremony.
Being that the cleaners have shuttered, broadcasting to social media is the family’s last-ditch effort to try and right the proverbial ship.
“That happened to me! And I found my dress! And the lady got her dress back also,” one woman optimistically commented on the viral video, which now has close to 780,000 views.
Many others were eager to pitch in with creative alternatives.
“If you can’t find your mom’s…mine is almost exactly the same as your mom’s and you’re welcome to it!!!” one kind bride offered.
“I’m from NJ and my [mom’s] wedding dress is the SAME as your mom’s ACTUAL dress. maybe if all else fails my mom would donate hers to you,” added another viewer.
Meanwhile, one woman vacationing in Europe said she had her suspicions regarding her own preserved dress, and promised to investigate upon return, according to NJ.com.
In a follow-up video , another woman said she would check hers too, as it was the same style as the gone-without-a-trace gown .
“It was just kind of like a dream to wear your mother’s wedding dress during your wedding,” Pereira said.
“But I never got that chance to actually do that.”
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