A bridal store that went up in flames in Chicago yesterday has left dozens of brides devastated that they have lost their dream dress. Of all the things a stressed bride envisions as she plans her wedding, having her gown and those of her bridesmaids go up in smoke, in some cases days before the wedding, would not have been on the list. Eva's Bridals was gutted by a fire that started in the roof and quickly spread throughout the shop and to the building next door.
Val Kuhl's nuptials 27 years ago was marred when a bridal shop failed to deliver her dress on time for her wedding and she vowed her daughter Ashley, 26, would never go through anything like that and would have the perfect day. But when she got a call at work yesterday that the store which housed her daughter's wedding dress was on fire, she became disheartened. By the time Mrs Kuhl and her daughter arrived at the store in Oak Lawn, the whole place was gutted, and with it the dream dress.
Ashley Kuhl's wedding was set for December 4, and four of her bridesmaids were among the scores of women suddenly without the dream outfits they had shopped so long to find. 'I promised my daughter this wasn't going to happen to her wedding. I promised her wedding would go off without a hitch', Mrs Kuhl said as she fought back tears. Ashley had been scheduled to pick up her dress at 6.30pm today. The fire broke out at 3pm yesterday afternoon and also took out a Radio Shack next door to Eva's. But when a social media and PR guru in suburban Chicago heard about the blaze on the news, she set about to help the ladies find replacement gowns - via Twitter.
Sarah Evans said: 'I started reading online about brides who lost their dresses. I think about when I was getting married, all the different stresses that are involved with that. And then to have your dress go away right before your wedding? I can't even imagine'. So she posted a message on Twitter, where she has more than 50,000 followers, offering to loan her own wedding gown to one of the brides that lost theirs. Within minutes other women joined in and offered to help too.
Ms Evans said: 'As soon as I did it, a bunch of other people said, 'Oh, I have a dress, I'll loan a dress'. She has now created a Google spreadsheet which can be viewed by the public for women who want to loan their dresses. They can enter in their information including size, description of the dress and contact details. Within fifteen minutes of it going live, 12 women had already responded and now nearly 100 women have added their details to help the dress-less women.
She is now hoping to expand the idea in what she calls a random act of kindness: 'I hope to be able to turn this into a larger project to loan nice dresses to people who maybe can't afford them', she said. Casey Aulisa, 23, was due to get married on Friday also lost her gown in the blaze. She said her dress was very small and needed extensive alterations so she does not believe she has any chance of finding another dress in time. She had planned her wedding for just over a year. The cause of the fire is being investigated but fire officials said no cause would be determined before the end of the week.