NJ woman searching for missing wedding dress

UNION, N.J. (PIX11) -- A woman from Union, New Jersey, is trying to find her lost wedding dress, which she thought she’d had in her possession for the last 30 years.

Christina Pereira had her wedding dress preserved in 1994 at East Side Cleaners in Newark. She recently took the gown out of the box to show her newly engaged daughter, and realized it contained someone else’s gown.

“I never, never in a million years thought I’d be at a point in time where my dress wouldn’t be in the box,” said Pereira.

Pereira’s daughter, Samantha, posted a now-viral video of herself wearing the dress to TikTok, in the hopes of finding her mother’s gown.

“My mother has been saving this for 30 years,” Samantha said in the video. “And it’s not her dress. It’s someone else’s dress.”

Samantha said the box had a small plastic window, through which you could see the veil, which did belong to her mother. “It’s definitely her veil,” said Samantha. “Just a completely different dress.”

Christina said the dry cleaner went out of business years ago, so she has no way of contacting the owners. At the very least, she would like to return the gown in her possession back to its rightful owner. But, ideally, she would like to do a swap and receive her dress as well.

“It was something special for her,” said Samantha. “She got married in it. She got blessed in it.”

“I walked down the aisle to my husband [in that dress],” said Christina. “It’s just sentimental. Very sentimental."