147-Year-Old Great-Great-Grandmother’s Wedding Dress Lost by Dry Cleaners, Found by Internet

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

As bride-to-be Tess Newall prepared for her big day, she knew that wedding dress shopping was one task she could scratch off her to-do list. Rather than purchase a new gown, Newall planned to wear her great-great-grandmother's handmade dress. At 147 years old, the garment was an irreplaceable family heirloom, and Newall was honored to wear it on her wedding day. Afterward, she brought the dress to Kleen Cleaners in Edinburgh, Scotland, to be dry cleaned.

And that's when disaster struck.

“I have just found out that the dry cleaners have lost my much loved wedding dress,” she wrote in a heartbroken Facebook post accompanied by a photo of her happily posing in the dress. According to Newall, Kleen Cleaners was once a trusted business, but had since landed in the hands of new and questionable owners. While in possession of her beloved wedding dress, the shop went into liquidation, and claimed that it was simply lost. Understandably, Newall was devastated—and skeptical.

Believing that the dress has suffered a different fate, she turned to the Internet for help. “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!” Her touching Facebook plea quickly gained traction, and soon boasted 46 thousand likes and 302 thousand shares. Fortunately, one of the thousands of Facebook users who stumbled upon the post was the landlord who owned the now-closed shop. As he went through the abandoned items on the property, he miraculously found the dress in a “crumpled heap” on the floor.

Filled with joy, Newall triumphantly updated her previous post with the announcement that “THE DRESS HAS BEEN FOUND!” (complete, of course, with emojis).  And, while she has had to patiently wait for the dress to be delivered for procedural reasons, she is “over the moon to be *almost* reunited with [the] dress.”

When Tess and Alfred Newall were married, the bride-to-be wore her great-great-grandmother's 147-year-old dress.

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

Following the big day, she brought her dress to Kleen Cleaners in Edinburgh.

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

While in possession of her dress, the shop closed, and claimed the dress was lost. Newall turned to Facebook to help track it down.

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

Thankfully, the cleaners' landlord saw the post, and the missing wedding dress was found inside the shop.

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

Reunited at last!

missing wedding dress found dry cleaners great great grandmother

h/t: [Bored Panda]

All images via Tess Newall.

Kelly Richman-Abdou

Kelly Richman-Abdou was a Contributing Writer at My Modern Met. An art historian living in Paris, Kelly was born and raised in San Francisco and holds a BA in Art History from the University of San Francisco and an MA in Art and Museum Studies from Georgetown University. When she’s not writing, you can find Kelly wandering around Paris, whether she’s leading a tour (as a guide, she has been interviewed by BBC World News America and France 24) or simply taking a stroll with her husband and two tiny daughters.
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