LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Nothing makes a wedding day like the perfect dress. For many brides, the gowns become heirlooms handed down from generation, to generation. But Danielle Biblehauser may never get that chance after her dry cleaner lost her dress. She turned to the WAVE 3 Troubleshooter Eric Flack for help and he is working to get the dress back.
Danielle's wedding day was everything she dreamed it would be.
"I'm not the ‘glam up' type," Danielle said, "so just to get the dress on and the makeup and the hair, the whole thing. I just couldn't wait."
Danielle always imagined sharing more than just the pictures.
"Just one day if I ever have a little girl, and she ever wants to wear my dress," said Danielle about the opportunity she hopes to share.
So Danielle decided to professionally preserve her wedding dress in case one day she had the chance pass it on. She trusted her gown to Breeders Cleaners in Jeffersonville. But when she came to pick it up, Danielle realized she had been hung out to dry
"He took the little paper off and it said my name on it and he said here you go," Danielle said. "And I looked at it, and remember thinking it looks really, really nice."
But then it hit Danielle – this was not her dress.
"And he said, ‘well, what do you mean?' And I said, ‘that's not my dress.' And he said, ‘oh my gosh. Umm....'"
Ron Casey, the owner of Reeder's Cleaners, said he didn't know where Danielle's wedding dress was. Casey told Danielle to go home and get a picture of it so he could search through his back room to try and find it. He never did and Danielle is still in shock.
"Very frustrated, very angry to know that I trusted him with my dress, to get it cleaned and make it as beautiful as the day I wore it, and it was nowhere to be found," Danielle said. "He lost it."
In a phone interview, Casey said he now believes Danielle's wedding dress was one of four he was preserving at the same time and he mixed up the labels. Casey tried calling the other three brides, but said all their phone numbers are were disconnected and he doesn't keep addresses.
To make up for what he did, Casey offered Danielle a deal. He said he would reimburse Danielle for half the price she paid for her wedding dress, about $600.
"As far as the sentimental value, I don't think he understands that at all," Danielle said. "I think he just thinks it's just a dress."
"Wedding gowns are a one event item," Casey said. "In theory they can be handed down, heirloom, but that's unlikely. She has the pictures, she has the day. $600 is a fair price for a gown that has been used and in all probability will never be worn again."
"Yes I only did wear it for one day but it was everybody's special day in the whole world and nothing can replace that," Danielle said.
It's even more painful now that Danielle is pregnant with her second child. It's still too early to know if she's having a girl, but if she is, it breaks Danielle's heart that her daughter may never have the chance to walk in her mom's footsteps.
"Just knowing that I will never have that opportunity if the dress isn't found, it's not a good feeling," said Danielle.
Casey refuses to use Internet people finders to continue his search and he won't give out the names of the other brides so I can help track them down. If you know anyone that might have gotten their wedding dress preserved by Reeder's Cleaners at 802 Spring Street in Jeffersonville, ask them to check the box to make sure they have the right gown.
Danielle said if all of us can help find her dress, she would be ecstatic. We'll update you if we hear any good news.
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Copyright 2011 WAVE News. All rights reserved.
Danielle Biblehauser
Photo of Danielle in her wedding dress (Source: Danielle Biblehauser)
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