Yahoo Lifestyle After a Bride's Mom Died in Hospice, She Found Her Dream Wedding Dress at the Facility's Charity Shop (Exclusive)
The bride purchased her wedding dress from St Ann's Hospice Bridal & Vintage Charity Shop to pay tribute to her late mother
A vintage wedding dress brought a bride closer to her late mother.
It was bittersweet when Jo Johnson (née Kiely), 38, searched for her wedding dress. Even though she was excited to find her dream dress for her big day, she had always imagined doing so with her mother, June Kiely, who died in 2015.
Luckily, she thought of a way to pay tribute to her through her dress. In January, Johnson and her maid of honor went to St Ann's Hospice Bridal & Vintage Charity Shop in Stockport, England. She tells PEOPLE she thought it would be fitting to buy her dress there because her mother received "incredible" care at the hospice's facility in Little Hulton.
"It was an instant change in her, she was like a different person," Johnson says of her late mother when she was moved to the hospice. "She was comfortable and so well cared for. She just kept telling me how lucky she was that she was able to go there. They showed us the same level of care as her family. Nothing was too much trouble whether it was letting us host a concert with an Elvis impersonator in their day room, making sure there was space for us all to stay at the hospice 'round the clock in the last few days or simply being there with a coffee, a smile and a cuddle when needed."
The facility also supported the bride with grief counseling several times, one time being when her older brother died two and a half years after their mother.
For Johnson, buying her wedding dress from the facility's charity shop was a "no-brainer."
"It felt like the perfect way to have my mum involved in the dress shopping process, something that traditionally a girl does with her mum," she tells PEOPLE. "It seemed to somehow take the pressure off a process that I was finding daunting without her."
Not only did Johnson feel beautiful in the gown, but she also felt closer to her mother. Simultaneously, she was honoring those who had cared for her mother in her final days nine years ago.
St Ann's Hospice Bridal & Vintage Charity Shop describes itself as a "hidden gem in the Underbank" and is "one of the town's best-kept secrets." It has a wide selection of new and pre-loved wedding dresses from different eras for affordable prices.
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Johnson says she tried on about 14 dresses in "every style you can think of."
"But the whole time there was a vintage one just winking at me," she recalls. "I wasn’t sure it would even fit and it is not at all what I thought I would be getting married in but the moment I put it on it just felt right. It fit like it was made for me and it was just so pretty."
She continues: "When I looked at my maid of honor and saw the look on her face I knew that was the one. We both cried when I said 'yes' to the dress, and having been pre-warned that it could be a very emotional experience for me the assistant helping us just quietly left the room and left myself and my maid of honor to have a moment to ourselves and a little cry."
Johnson exchanged "I dos" with her fiancé Matt at Holmes Mill in Clitheroe on Aug. 18, wearing the dress that allowed her mother to still be an integral part of her day.
"I’m still not sure I can even explain in words just how beautiful I felt in my dress on the day," she says. "I had a plain white satin belt made to finish it off and it just looked perfect. My husband’s face as I walked down the aisle was an absolute picture and he was genuinely speechless for the first time in all the time I’ve known him. That told me all I needed to know about how I looked in the dress."
"I’m so grateful to the shop for helping me find my perfect dress and I’m so happy I listened to my heart and visited them in the first place," she adds.
