On the 10th of October this year, my husband and I will be celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary. So I thought I would share with you a heart-warming, true story that may help restore just a little of your faith in humanity and thereby mean you can celebrate along with us!

Our wedding was organised in 6 weeks, on half a shoe string budget. We picked a little town and found a registry office. There was only going to be us, our son and a few witnesses – that was all we needed….except I didn’t have a wedding dress.

You may have realised by now I wasn’t a Bridezilla – I just needed the basics.

I remembered I had seen a charity shop displaying wedding dresses in their window, during the last month or so as part of some promotion they were running. I looked up the number of every store they had in the area to see what they had left.

There were only a few stores so I knew it wouldn’t take long – oh, forgot to mention; this was just over a week before the wedding! So I phoned the stores, starting with the largest and was told they had nothing left and they advised me to try the next store.

I did – and was told the same thing.

I was quickly running out of places to phone. Then it was suggested to me to try a store I hadn’t contacted yet. I phoned and asked the manager if she had any wedding dresses left in her shop. She did but the problem was, it was about 3 sizes too small for me. The conversation went something like this (and I’m including it as it tells the story better than I can explain it):

Manager: Yes we do have a dress on display.

Me: Great, what size is it?

Manager: Oh I think its a size 8.

Me: Oh dear, that won’t fit – I need a size 14.

Manager: Yes, it is quite small, I wouldn’t fit it either! I have a size 14 dress in my attic – do you want to try that?

Me: You would let me wear your wedding dress?

Manager: Of course, as long as you bring it back – it was very expensive!

Me: How much do you want for lending it out?

Manager: Nothing – just knowing I can help you enjoy your wedding day is enough.

Now, that might not be verbatim, but it’s as close as I can get. The manager of the charity shop was willing to let me go pick up the dress – from a different town from the one I live in – take it home to try on and let her know if I wanted it for the wedding…..without taking payment, my name or my address.

I went and collected the dress and took it home, agreeing to let her know if it fit and so on.

I went home and tried the dress on…..it was a perfect fit. I phoned to say I would be wearing it for my wedding and would return it to her as soon as we returned, as we would be away for a week.

And that was that! I took the dress in its zipped bag, on our wedding trip, wore it for the wedding (which I thoroughly enjoyed!), put it back in the zipped bag and brought it back.

When I went to return the dress to the shop (including a thank you present), I was informed the lady was on holiday! I left everything at the store and came home – stunned. I couldn’t believe the kindness that lady had shown me, and the level of trust. I had asked several times if I could give her my details and she calmly told me, “No, it’s fine, I trust you”.

She put her faith and trust in a complete stranger – to help a wedding go ahead.

It still blows my mind.