WEST BEND, Wis. — A West Bend woman is searching for her wedding dress after discovering 11 years later that a dry cleaner gave her the wrong gown.
Watch: West Bend bride discovers wrong wedding dress 11 years after preservation
Calyn Strobel got married in September 2014 and had her dress professionally cleaned and preserved. She didn't open the box again until this year, when her daughter Madilynn wanted to try on the dress.
"It's just devastating to think I'm not going to see my dress again," Strobel said.
When they opened the preservation box, they found a completely different dress inside.
"How did it feel when you realized? Like a knife in my heart," Strobel said.
Strobel's original dress featured a shorter tulle design with Spanish details and had no sleeves or belt. The dress she received instead has different characteristics entirely.
"It means so much to me. 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," Strobel said.
The discovery crushed Strobel's daughters, who had hoped to incorporate the dress into their own future weddings.
"I kind of got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Oh no, this is not the right dress, this is not the one. She was freaking out, and I was freaking out," Madilynn Strobel said.
"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," she said.
Strobel had planned to pass the dress down through generations as a family tradition.
"I wanted to keep it forever, give it to my daughters, have them keep it, they can save it and give it to their daughters. I wanted to save it and keep that tradition going," Strobel said.
The dry cleaner where Strobel picked up the dress 11 years ago is now under new management, but they are trying to help locate her original gown.
Strobel is sharing her story on social media and encouraging other brides in Washington County to check their preserved wedding dresses to ensure they have the correct gown.
"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," Strobel said.
Anyone with information about Strobel's missing wedding dress can contact TMJ4 at marcus.aarsvold@tmj4.com.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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