Bride’s Wedding Dress Stolen Three Hours Before Her Wedding Ceremony

Ladies, picture this? It’s less than two hours before you are to walk down the aisle, your hair is picture perfect after leaving a downtown Miami beauty salon, you open your car door and your wedding dress, which you left there only a short hour ago is nowhere to be found!!!! It obviously was stolen……Panic sets in…

Meanwhile, back at the reception site, Villa Vizcaya on Biscayne Bay a mere two miles south of downtown Miami, my crew is putting the final touches on the ceremony and reception set-up. Out of the corner of my eye I see the bride’s wedding planner frantically dialing her cell phone, surrounded by her posse and some of the bride’s family. It was late Sunday afternoon and all of the Miracle Mile bridal salons had already closed, but the bride’s planner, a Miami legend Lois Beinhorn, had the home phone numbers of the owners of her favorite shops. In a manner of minutes one salon owner sped from her home to her salon, the bride was whisked to Coral Gables, fitted with a new dress (she was a perfect size 4) and arrived at Vizcaya only an hour late.

As the caterer, I quickly realized that the guests would be arriving before the bride, so my team jumped into action, opening the bars and passing hors d’oeuvres to keep the arriving, hungry and thirsty guests happy until the bride arrived for her ceremony. And they were quite happy when the bride arrived for her postponed ceremony.

The rest of the evening went off without a hitch….I in fact I still have a photo of the bride dancing contently with her father during the father daughter dance. I’ll never forget how happy she looked, her chin resting on her dad’s shoulder with a smile of contentment. However, the wedding guests were more than curious as to who stole the wedding dress. Rumors swirled throughout the party, but with no resolution. Everyone went home without knowing the answer….

Early the next day, the bride’s brothers arrived at my catering facility to pick up a few left-behind items, and I asked him, “Did you ever discover who stole the dress?” “Yes we did,” he angrily responded, “it was the GROOM’S FORMER GIRLFRIEND!” I never found out what happened to her, but the bride’s insurance covered the cost of the stolen dress, and the good news was that the one she bought at the last minute cost considerably less than the Vera Wang that was stolen….more money for the new home, the kids and college!!!!

This is a true story…one that hopefully should never happen again.