B.C. Bride Searches Nationwide for Wedding Dress Accidentally Donated to Charity

I wish I wasn't making this post but I am looking for my wedding dress." That's how Olivia Delgado opened a Facebook appeal that has since spread through wedding groups across British Columbia, as she searches for a gown that represents something no reward can fully replace.

Delgado married last October, and during a recent move from Surrey to Squamish, her wedding dress was accidentally mixed into clothing donations headed for the Salvation Army in Surrey. "We were clearing out our childhood home, big job, and I guess somehow in the process it ended up getting mixed into the clothing donations," she said.

The dress isn't just a dress. Delgado's mother helped her pick it out and bought it for her before dying of brain cancer, before ever seeing her daughter walk down the aisle. "This was one of the last things that we did together before she got too sick to go out," Delgado said. "We picked out the wedding dress together, and she bought it for me. So, it's like a piece of her is in that dress, and it's really important to me that I get it back."

The search has been complicated by the Salvation Army's distribution network. When Delgado contacted a warehouse manager, he told her that because the distribution centre operates across the country, the dress "could have ended up at any one of the stores technically in all of Canada, but hopefully just in B.C." That single sentence turned a local search into a national one.

Delgado has been working through every Salvation Army location in the Lower Mainland, from North Vancouver to New Westminster and beyond, physically checking stores while her Facebook post continues to circulate. "Other people have been checking for me, too, which has been a huge help," she said. "We're slowly checking boxes off our list, and I'm hoping that it hasn't been sold yet."

The dress should be identifiable. In her Facebook post, Delgado described it as a size 10 Melissa Sweet gown that would have arrived in a white David's Bridal bag sometime around mid-February. The bottom tulle is torn and dirty from wedding photos taken in the rain, and she noted there are likely a food stain or two on it as well.

If someone has already purchased the dress from a thrift store, Delgado is offering a $300 reward and has pledged to help source a brand-new replacement: "I can help you source down the exact dress brand new, whatever you want. I'm really hoping you'd understand how important it is to me that I get this dress back."

Anyone with information can reach Delgado through her public Facebook post, where she shared wedding photos of herself in the gown.