Bride's Online Search for Her Mother's Wedding Gown Returns a Stranger's Heirloom to Its Family

When Lexie Ippolito was in fifth grade, she watched her mother marry in a strapless, Michelangelo-style gown with beading and a matching sheer veil. Now 28 and engaged, Ippolito long planned to make that dress the first one she tried on for her 2027 wedding.

This summer, that plan fell apart. Ippolito and her mother opened the preserved gown, which the family had kept in storage for more than a decade, at her mother's home in Schaumburg. Inside was a stranger's dress. "It was just heart-wrenching," Ippolito said. "I feel like both our hearts sank to the bottom of our stomachs."

She turned to social media in hopes the person holding her mother's dress would see her appeal, and she wanted to swap the gowns before her rehearsal dinner next year. Her TikTok posts drew thousands of comments and likes. A recent post in a Facebook group for Chicago-area brides collected nearly 2,000 likes and was shared by dozens of brides-to-be offering help.

The answer to part of the mystery was in the dress itself. On Friday, Ippolito found a small, blue, embroidered tag sewn into the lining that read "Heidi and Jake, May 19, 2007." With no surname or location, she searched the wedding date online and found an obituary for a California bride, Heidi Webber McClellan of Oroville. She then located the family on Facebook and sent a message explaining the mix-up.

Webber McClellan died in October 2009 after a rejected bone marrow transplant. Her mother, Sue Webber-Brown, had used a David's Bridal preservation package to have the gown cleaned, and believed it was lost in the mail on its return from Texas. "Not only did I lose my daughter, but I lost my daughter's dress," she said. She had hoped to pass it to a granddaughter. Of Ippolito's effort, she said through tears: "Not many people would do that." The dress is expected to arrive in California later this week.

Ippolito's mother was handed Webber McClellan's dress in March 2010 at a Schaumburg David's Bridal. The shop sent gowns to Memories Gown Preservation, a Houston dry cleaner that has since closed. Wedding Gown Preservation Co. of Endicott, New York, bought the business in December 2025, and owner Colby Schapiro says it has no records from 2010.

Schapiro said such swaps are rare, especially with today's tracking. Each piece of an outfit, including gloves and veil, typically carries an identical barcode through cleaning and pressing, which can take several weeks. "I don't know if it was a freak thing that happened in 2010 if the tags got misplaced," he said. "It's definitely not prevalent in the business." David's Bridal did not respond to the Tribune's email request for comment.

According to Ippolito, the two dresses were 120 ticket ID numbers apart during preservation. Working with Wedding Gown Preservation Co., she says she is determined to find the customers with the numbers in between. Her mother's gown, a David's Bridal Michelangelo-style T8589, could be anywhere in the country, and she urged brides who had gowns preserved through David's Bridal in early 2010 to "go check your box." She is to marry at Holy Name Cathedral next year.

Responses to her late October Facebook post have been warm. Commenters shared their own preservation horror stories, and some who own similar gowns offered to lend them. "It's restoring my faith in humanity," said Ippolito, who grew up in Jefferson Park and lives in Boston. Webber-Brown said finding Ippolito's mother's dress would be a "second miracle."