NEED TO KNOW
Madison hoped to reuse her mother’s wedding dress from 1992 for her rehearsal dinner before her June 2028 wedding.
When she and her mother opened the box, sealed for more than 32 years, they discovered a completely different dress.
The family’s research revealed a mix-up involving Madison’s aunts and raised fears that the original dress may have been lost forever.
Stacy Cohen had carefully saved her wedding dress for more than three decades, hoping that one day one of her daughters would wear it. But when her daughter Madison finally opened the box to try on the dress before her own wedding, they discovered something neither could have imagined: the dress inside wasn’t Stacy’s.
“When Madison looked at our wedding photos and told me how beautiful she thought my dress was, expressing that she wanted to try it on and possibly wear it for her own wedding celebrations, I was thrilled,” Stacy told PEOPLE. “I was beyond excited that she would wear something so special to me and create her own memories in it.”
Stacy purchased her wedding dress in 1992 from a boutique called Exclusives for the Bride, choosing a Christos Yiannakou design in silk and French lace with intricate hand-beaded details. She still remembers buying it with her own mother and the excitement she felt when she first tried it.
More than 30 years later, Madison hoped to give the dress another moment in the spotlight by wearing it to her rehearsal dinner before her wedding in June 2028. The two had discussed shortening the dress or even transforming it into one that Madison could wear while getting ready on the morning of her wedding.
Stacy Cohen during her weddingCredit: Madison Cohen
“We loved the idea of incorporating her into my rehearsal dinner look because it was a very meaningful way to honor her, especially because I often feel like the mother of the bride can get overlooked in the excitement of the wedding,” Madison tells PEOPLE. She wanted to find a way to celebrate her mother while taking a piece of her parents’ wedding day with her.
One Sunday afternoon, when Madison was returning from Chicago, the two decided it was finally time to open the box. Stacy had been storing it in her home since 1996, thinking the dress she last saw in 1994 was safely stored inside.
The dress had been placed in a gold presentation box with a viewing window and then sealed in a larger white preservation box to protect the fabric. As the outer box covered the window, neither woman was able to see the dress without breaking the seal.
Madison began recording as her mother opened the box, hoping to capture a special moment they had talked about for years. Instead, they found a dress that looked nothing like the one Stacy wore to her wedding.
“When we finally opened it, I think our first laugh was actually just pure shock,” Madison recalls. “The dress wasn’t even similar to my mother’s, but once the shock wore off and we realized what it actually meant, it became incredibly heartbreaking.”
Madison shared the discovery on TikTok, writing on the video: “I went to try on my mom’s wedding dress to wear to my rehearsal dinner…but when we opened the box it wasn’t her dress.” She simply captioned the post: “I’m devastated.”
Stacy was stunned by this discovery, especially after spending decades believing her dress was safely preserved. She couldn’t wait to see Madison try it, just like she remembered doing it with her own mother all those years ago.
“One Sunday afternoon, as Madison was driving home from Chicago, we were both very excited to finally open the box, which had been sealed for over 32 years,” Stacy recalled. “Madison started recording as soon as I opened it, and when I saw the dress inside, I was completely shocked and devastated.”
The family began searching for answers, starting with Stacy’s youngest sister, Jodi, who borrowed her wedding dress for her own ceremony in 1994. Jodi explained that she gave the dress to their mother to keep professionally, prompting the family to dig through old wedding photographs.
The photos revealed an unexpected clue: the dress in Stacy’s box actually belonged to her older sister, Sheri. Their mother, now 86, had arranged for both girls’ dresses to be preserved and kept the boxes in her basement, where the family believes they were accidentally exchanged before being returned.
It seemed like a mystery that could be solved by simply swapping the robes, but there was another problem. Several years earlier, Sheri had suffered a flood that damaged her wedding dress box which she believed contained her own dress beyond repair.
“We now believe that the dress she lost in that flood was actually my mother’s original wedding dress,” Madison says. The family has since searched Stacy’s parents’ home and that of her sisters, but the missing dress has yet to be found.
Stacy Cohen’s sister’s wedding dressCredit: Madison Cohen
Stacy remembers the last time she saw her dress in 1994, when Jodi borrowed it for her wedding. Two years later, her mother gave her the preservation box, and Stacy spent the next 30 years believing the dress was inside.
“Even though we don’t know exactly what happened, we searched my parents’ home and my sisters’ home in hopes that it could be found out,” Stacy said. “Unfortunately, my original wedding dress is still nowhere to be found.”
Never miss a story: subscribe to PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date with the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
The dress they discovered will be returned to Sheri, while Stacy continues to hope that her own dress could be recovered somehow. She still cherishes the memories of her choice with her mother and wishes she could share the same excitement with Madison.
Madison, meanwhile, has until 2028 to decide what she’ll wear to her rehearsal dinner. She plans to look for a dress similar to Stacy’s and surprise her, even though she knows that replicating this intricate dress might be difficult.
The disappointment was particularly hard on Stacy, whose carefully preserved memory could disappear forever. Madison says she’s been able to move forward a little easier, knowing that her mother is grieving the loss of something tied to one of the most important days of her life.
Still, Stacy hasn’t given up hope that the dress will one day return to her. “Getting my dress back would mean more to me than I can express in words,” she says. “It would be a dream come true to see Madison have the opportunity to wear it and carry on a special family tradition. More than anything, I would love for her to experience the same excitement and happiness I felt when I first put it on all those years ago.”
Read the original article on People
Gn entert
