For years, Christina Pereira looked forward to seeing her daughter get married in the same wedding dress she wore down the aisle in 1994.

The New Jersey resident has kept the dress preserved in a box for 30 years, tucked away safely in a box in her daughter’s childhood closet.

But on Saturday, when her daughter tried the dress on, they realized the dress Christina dropped off at East Side Cleaners in Newark was not the dress they opened. While the dry cleaning business sent them home with the correct veil, the dress belonged to another bride.

“It was disappointing,” 52-year-old Christina told USA TODAY Friday morning. “It was a shock.”

The dry cleaning business is now closed, so the family decided to post the dress they opened on social media, along with photos of the dress Christina wore back in 1994. 

"My mother has been saving this for 30 years and it's not her dress," her daughter, 27-year-old Samantha, said in a TikTok video posted Tuesday, “If anyone recognizes this and has my mother's dress, can you please reach out so I can wear my mother's dress?"

The video has since been widely circulated, generating more than 700,000 views and 70,000 likes.

They hope someone finds Christina's dress and returns it to the mother who has cherished it for 30 years.

Mother always wanted her daughter to don 1994 wedding gown

Samantha recalled how during her childhood, her mother dreamed of seeing her wear the dress from her 1994 wedding.

Samantha always thought her mother would see her in the dress and be moved to tears. 

“She didn't start crying,” Samantha said. “I was like ‘Maybe I don't look that good in this dress,’ and then I realized she couldn't have the same emotion. It wasn't her dress.”

Samantha planned to wear the dress at her own wedding or take a piece of it and make it her own, incorporating it somehow.

“We didn't know exactly what we were going to do, but now we have that chance taken away,” said Samantha. "Now, I don't have her dress to even make that decision.”

Devastated, Christina and Samantha hope someone out there has Christina’s dress and will return it to them. 

They have a few leads so far, including a woman who is currently vacationing but said she got married around the same time and her dress looks similar.

Christina doesn’t remember the brand of her dress but the family said the dress they opened is labeled “Moonlight.”

“Am I going to get my dress back after 30 years? I don’t know,” Christina said. “I would absolutely love it if I could, more so for Samantha because she did want to wear it … But if I can return this dress back to the rightful owner, I would love it just the same.”

Mother says missing wedding dress is ‘elegant’ and made her ‘feel like Cinderella’

Christina bought the dress in 1993 at a David's Bridal warehouse. She recalls how she got it altered since she’s on the shorter side. She also had it altered to bring the dress up around the chest area since she was “very conservative back then.”

She fell in love with the lace on the dress, and its subtle beading.

“It wasn't overly beaded,” she said. “It was just elegant. The train … that was the main focus of my dress. The train was long … It was just beautiful. It made me feel like Cinderella.”

Her dress made her feel stunning on her special day. Her wedding was in June of 1994 and about a month later, she took it to East Side Cleaners in Newark to get it preserved in a vacuum-sealed box. The only part of her dress she could see was the veil.

Samantha, who posted about the dress, said she has received tons of comments from people who have family members they think can help. Some know couples who married in New Jersey around the same time.

“They just keep asking other family members to send pictures,” she said. “That video really blew up and I feel like people really want answers.”

The road to saying ‘I do’

Christina met her now husband, Luis, when she was at work. He often came into the store she worked at to buy soda. He’d take glances at her, hoping she wouldn’t notice, but she did.

One Valentine’s Day, he sent her flowers with no note, so she thought they were from a friend. Finally, one of her coworkers told him about a club she went to often.

“He showed up one day,” Christina smiled. He proposed on Christmas Day in 1992 and they were married on June 4, 1994.

Her daughter, Samantha, met her fiance when the pair worked at a psychiatric hospital. Samantha had worked there for a few years when she met her soon-to-be fiance, Daniel DaSilva. He was studying social work.

“I saw him and I was like ‘I want to talk to this man. I need to know who he is,'” Samantha recalled. “I think I was the persistent one. I definitely took my chance. I know the girls aren't supposed to chase but there was something about him.”

The pair got engaged in July in Portugal and are set to marry in New Jersey in July 2025.

If Samantha can’t find her mother’s dress for the ceremony, she’ll get her own, she said.

“The whole point was to wear my mother's dress,” Samantha said. “It was supposed to be my mother's dress so at this point, if we don't find it, I'm coming to terms with that.”

Her mother said the dress means a lot to their family.

“I got married in it,” she said. “I was blessed in it. I partied in it at the reception. I had dreams for it, and those dreams were broken when we opened up the box and it's not there anymore.”

To contact the family, visit www.tiktok.com/@samanthapereirax or www.instagram.com/samanthaxpereira.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Follow her on Twitter at@SaleenMartin or email her atsdmartin@usatoday.com.

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