Nationwide — Symone Gilbert, an African American woman from Cranston, Rhode Island, is hoping to recover a family wedding dress that was accidentally donated to a thrift store. The handmade gown carries deep sentimental value, and she wants to buy it back before her own wedding.
Gilbert says the dress went missing after she helped her mother clean out the basement about two weeks ago. According to WJAR, the family sorted items into keep, donate, and trash piles while trying to organize years of stored belongings. During the cleanup, the wedding dress ended up in the donation pile by mistake.
The gown is more than just a dress. Gilbert said her great-grandmother handmade it, and her mother wore it during her wedding in 1992. Over the years, it became a treasured family heirloom and was kept in the basement for safekeeping.
The family noticed the dress was missing three days after dropping off donations at a Savers store in Warwick. When they contacted the store, employees told them the gown had already been sold.
Gilbert is now engaged and plans to get married next December. She hopes to recover the dress so she can wear part of it on her wedding day.
“It would honestly be this full circle moment,” she said. “It would let me have three generations of my family connected because my great grandmother made the dress, my mom wore it, and my wedding day is on my maternal grandmother’s birthday and she passed away.”
She says she is willing to buy the dress back from whoever purchased it and is asking for help spreading the word in hopes it finds its way home.