By Bonnie Burch, The Tennessean
After 26 years of storing her wedding dress under the bed, wrapped
up in protective layers of cardboard boxes, cellophane and plastic, Kim
Jones gave in to her daughter's pleas to show her the dress.
But
what should have been a special bonding moment between mother and
daughter last month in their Georgia home instead turned to shock, which
then led to a deeper mystery.
The two were getting sentimental
and taking photos of the moment, when Emily Jones, a freshman in
college, noticed something peculiar.
"Mama, I didn't know your wedding dress had (long) sleeves," she said as she held the newly unwrapped dress aloft.
"It doesn't," said her mother as both gazed at what were clearly long sleeves attached to the outfit.
The garment that had been stored under her bed for a quarter of a century wasn't Kim Jones' wedding dress at all.
"We screamed in horror and just about died," Kim Jones said.
Soon
after the Oct. 25, 1986, wedding at Forest Hills Baptist Church, Kim
Jones' mother took the dress to White Way Cleaners on Church Street East
in Brentwood to have it cleaned and preserved. The family was cautioned
that taking the dress out of the bags and boxes could lead to fabric
deterioration and fading.
The outer and inner boxes in the set-up
had clear heart-shaped windows so that viewers could glimpse the
contents. The dresses had similar beading, so those looking through
the windows didn't suspect that something was amiss.
Now the
family, which lived in Franklin for a number of years before moving to
Georgia, is trying to find the original dress, with only a few clues
available. The outer box had a laundry ticket with two tracking numbers
that match Jones' original ticket, but the inner box had a laundry
ticket that is one number off from the other two. The family can't check
with the original cleaners because it's no longer in business.
Kim
Jones imagines that there is another mom out there who also may be
frantically searching for her wedding dress for her own daughter or
might not even know that she, too, has the wrong dress under her bed or
in her closet.
In particular, Emily wants her mother's dress back because she hopes to wear it in her own wedding some day.
"As
the only girl in the family, this is the one thing that my mother had
for me. She took the time to keep it and preserve it. And to find out
that it wasn't hers after all these years was very disappointing," she
said.