SoCal woman looking for wedding dress accidentally donated to Goodwill by her father

A Southern California woman is desperate for her beloved wedding dress after it was accidentally donated to Goodwill by her father.

Rebecca Nguyen kept the dress she wore in 2017 down the aisle at her parents’ house until she realized her father was clearing the property to sell, after divorcing her mother.

In a panic, she called him to find out that everything — including the gorgeous floor-length dress that brought her Marine husband to tears on their special day — had been donated to the Goodwill in Brea, California.

Nguyen has spent the days calling locations around Orange County and posting to Facebook and TikTok begging others to get her dress back.

“I honestly didn’t think I’d be so attached to it,” she said NBC4 LA. “But when I found that dress, I put it on and just felt like the most beautiful version of myself.”

According to Nguyen, her dress has been at her parents’ house since her wedding in August 2017 and she never worried about it disappearing.

However, when her parents separated, she realized that her father was cleaning up the house before selling it and started to worry about the status of the dress.

“And he said, ‘There’s nothing left,’ and I thought, ‘Oh my God,'” Nguyen said.

The dress was eventually turned over to Goodwill sometime in late April or early May.

“Unfortunately things were donated to Goodwill and my wedding dress was donated with some other stuff by accident,” she told NBC4.

She immediately sprang into action, calling the original Goodwill where the dress was dropped off. That proved fruitless.

“We called Goodwill right away and they said, ‘Unfortunately, we don’t sell wedding dresses at this location,'” she said.

It is possible that the dress was sent to a warehouse and then redistributed to another Goodwill location in the area for sale.

Since that first call, she has communicated with several other stores in hopes that they might be able to find it.

“They help,” she said. “All Goodwill stores have a photo of the dress and an email with my details in it. So we do as much as we can.’

In addition to her calls to Goodwills in the Southern California area, she says she’s been proactive on social media, sharing her story in Facebook groups and on TikTok.

“I posted, I don’t know, I want to say like 30 to 40 Facebook pages. Like every local page I can find, you know, wedding pages, that sort of thing,” she said.

In a TikTok video she posted, she shared photos of the dress and urged anyone who saw or bought the dress to let her know immediately.

The TikTok video has been viewed nearly 30,000 times and received hundreds of comments.

“People are really great and sharing,” she said.

One commenter noted that it takes someone with a big heart who has already bought it to eventually return it.

Nguyen said she knows it’s possible someone has already bought it and just wants to work with that buyer to eventually get it back.

“There’s a good chance someone already has the dress, and I understand they’re probably in love with it because I was in love with it, and finding a Goodwill is one such score,” she said.

“I’m fine with everyone having this wedding dress, like wearing it to their wedding.” But you know, if I could pay them to get it back, that would be, that’s pretty much all I’m asking for,” the SoCal woman continued.

A Goodwill representative who spoke to CBS Los Angeles said there’s still a chance the dress hasn’t been sorted at all.

“It could be in the warehouse, still waiting to be sorted,” said Chris Sewitsky, Brea Goodwill’s retail director.

“It just depends on where and at what time it came in. That store is a very busy store. Some stuff stays in that store, others come back to the main distribution,’ Sewitsky continued.

“So we hope we can find it because it’s such a unique item,” he said.

As she continues to search, she told NBC4 that she hopes this will end on a good note and that one day it will just be a funny story to tell her grandchildren.

“Oh, I was on TV, and it was a big manhunt and we found the dress,” she joked.

Anyone with more information about the missing dress can contact Goodwill in Brea by calling (714) 255-1099.