Lexie Ippolito’s hunt for her mother’s lost wedding dress just delivered a miracle to a California grandmother who had given up hope.
Ippolito, 28, of Schaumburg, Illinois, had planned to walk down the aisle next year in her mom’s Michelangelo-style strapless gown. That dream collapsed when she learned the dress a preservation company shipped back to her family in 2010 was the wrong one entirely.
“It was just heart-wrenching,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “I feel like both our hearts sank to the bottom of our stomachs.”
Rather than surrender, Ippolito launched a social-media campaign across Facebook and TikTok that drew thousands of likes but no sign of her mother’s dress. Along the way, she traced the mistaken gown to its true owner — and uncovered a years-old loss she never expected to heal.
The dress Ippolito’s family received had been worn by Heidi Webber McClellan at her 2007 wedding. Two years later, McClellan died from a failed bone marrow transplant. Her mother, Sue Webber-Brown, had long believed the gown was gone forever.
“Not only did I lose my daughter, but I lost my daughter’s wedding dress,” Webber-Brown said. “And I wanted it. I wanted it for my granddaughter that I hope to have someday and have now. I never thought I’d ever see it again.”
Webber-Brown said she was stunned by Ippolito’s refusal to simply discard the stranger’s dress.
“Lexie could have just said, ‘Not my dress,’ and set it aside,” she said. “The fact that she would go to so much effort to try to find us, the owner of it, I can’t even explain.”
She continued, “It’s overwhelming. Not many people would do that.”
The mix-up originated in March 2010, when Ippolito’s mother sent her dress to Schaumburg David’s Bridal, which forwarded it to Memories Gown Preservation in Houston, Texas. That dry-cleaning business was later sold. Colby Shapiro, whose family bought the company last year, told the Tribune that records from the 2010 error no longer exist.
“I don’t know if it was a freak thing that happened in 2010, if the tags got misplaced,” he said. “Its definitely not prevalent in the business.”
Thanks to Ippolito’s detective work, McClellan’s wedding dress is now bound for California. Yet the bride-to-be’s own search presses on without resolution.
“I don’t know if my mom’s dress is going to be found from this,” Ippolito said. “But I’m just happy that Heidi’s dress was in my hands and that I put the effort into finding the family.”
