Bride who found stained $25 wedding dress at a thrift store reveals how she transformed it into the gown of her dreams

A bride who found a stained wedding dress at a thrift store for just $25 told DailyMail.com how she turned it into the dress she always wanted.

Adrian Bradley, 26, who married her husband Ryan Jennings, also 26, in June 2024, found a vintage dress rolled up into a ball. Working with a seamstress, she painstakingly transformed the secondhand dress into the dress of her dreams.

Adrian documented the process on TikTokwhere she stunned her followers with her transformation, changing the dress from an off-the-shoulder 90s gown with rosettes to a more fitted gown with a modern pearl pin.

She told DailyMail.com: ‘I’ve always loved things with character and a vintage and royal feel,’ explaining: ‘The image I had of my wedding dress was no different!’

Adrian wanted a unique wedding dress and told FEMAIL: ‘One of the biggest obstacles was my budget.’

Adrian saw dresses from designers she loved, but since she and her fiancé Ryan were paying for the wedding themselves, she felt they couldn’t justify paying over $10,000 for a one-day dress.

Adrian met her current husband when they were in high school and she dated Ryan’s boyfriend. They later got back together when they both attended the University of Arkansas.

Now the college sweethearts, who got engaged in December 2022, live in Berkeley, California.

Adrian began her search for a wedding dress in boutiques, but couldn’t find the right dress. She tried on over 60 dresses during her visits and even flew to Los Angeles to meet a designer.

Adrian went thriftiness with her sister-in-law while visiting her family in Dallas, Texas, at one of her favorite places to shop for home accessories.

“I had asked my sister-in-law to meet me there because she had just got engaged and was getting married in two months,” Adrian explained.

‘I had already chosen a dress for my wedding, but I still had to make the payment because I had this strange feeling that I had to wait a little longer. I had no intention of looking for or finding a dress.’

Eventually, she found her off-the-shoulder silk ball gown rolled up in a plastic bag in a corner. Her sister-in-law let her try it on, even though there were no fitting rooms, so they tried on their dresses in the back of the thrift store.

“It was one of those moments where you put something on and you don’t want to take it off,” Adrian admitted.

Unfortunately, there was one small problem. ‘I immediately FaceTimed my mother [and] “She wasn’t as excited as I was,” Adrian said.

“The dress was badly damaged and the floral pattern at the top had frayed edges and discoloration. She thought I was crazy.”

‘Even the cashier looked at me strangely when I said this was going to be my wedding dress, but I knew it had to be part of another beautiful story.’

The dress was stained and yellow under the arms and after she had it professionally cleaned, the flowers on the neckline were damaged.

‘I didn’t realise how bad the stains were until I sent it off to be cleaned and got the photos back,’ Adrian told FEMAIL. ‘Pretty much everything came out, but the yellowing under my armpits wouldn’t go away.’

Adrian had the bodice covered in new fabric by a seamstress she had worked with for some time. This fabric suited the look better and covered the stains.

She also bought a veil on Etsy that she hand-dyed to match the dress.

Adrian bought $75 worth of fabric and added detachable sleeves to the dress. In total, she spent $3,330 on the dress, after buying a pearl pin and making alterations. Despite this, the dress still came in under her $4,000 budget.

Adrian believes that two other women wore the dress before her and that over time they added boning and flowers.

She is considering and rededicate it to another bride, but said, “Right now I’m just enjoying looking at it and cherishing the life it lived to come to me.”

After sharing the transformation on TikTok, one viewer said he thought it was a Pattern by Jessica McClintock, although she couldn’t find the pattern online.

Viewers who followed the program were very positive about the sustainable nature of the dress. They called the dress ‘beautiful, classic and timeless’ and compared it to the dress Aurora wore in Sleeping Beauty.

The garment bag no longer had a tag on it, but Adrian was keen to track down the original owner, saying, “If I knew the journey it took to get to me, it would make it even more special.”